Verizon EVDO Restrictive Use Policy

So, high-speed wireless EVDO services costs $70 to $80 per month, but only for what they'll let you do with it...

Link to BoingBoing.

How the mighty have fallen...

I've been following this story for a week now. The bottom line is: SONY's DRM protected cd's install code on your machine, yeah just like a virus that's hard to detect (that reports information on usage of the content), they get caught, they issue issue a patch that removes the code, then basically say: "this was not malicious code, no worries, everything is OK".
Wow. Do they ever NOT get it.

I was thinking just a few weeks ago that SONY used to (circa 1988) almost completely encircle me in the living room
(TV, DVD, CD, A/V Receiver etc.) Now they are nowhere to be found. Apple has almost completely replaced them on both the Hardware and Software front... then I read this from Molly Wood at CNET News (via EFF):

"So, let's make this a bit more explicit. You buy a CD. You put the CD into your PC in order to enjoy your music. Sony grabs this opportunity to sneak into your house like a virus and set up camp, and it leaves the backdoor open so that Sony or any other enterprising intruder can follow and have the run of the place. If you try to kick Sony out, it trashes the place. And what does this software do once it's on your PC? ... The DRM itself is almost unbelievably restrictive, and some have suggested that the reasoning behind it is part of Sony's ongoing war over digital music supremacy with the decidedly more supreme Apple."

How the mighty have fallen.


Link to list of offending CD's (via EFF)
Link to Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Link to Wired News.

Italian police are investigating and watch for the inevitable class action lawsuits on this one. UPDATE: yup, less than 24 hours after I posted on this... California files a lawsuit.

and if you think all this is insane, check out SONY's End User Licence Agreement for playing a music CD on your computer. Unbelievable.

UPDATE: Link to great Wired News summary of the whole mess.

Google Maps mashups for Canada

Some cool Google Maps mashups for Canada.

"Google Maps mashups are providing visual context for location-based information on the Internet. A mashup is an information source "mashed-up" with Google Maps. These mashups are invaluable new web-based tools to find information in Canada. I've collected all known Google Maps mashups and tools which are specific to Canada to get you started:"

Link via GoogleMapsMania (in Waterloo).

A serious samy...

A sandwich that cost $47.00 and sports 30,000 calories.... yumm....

Link to sandwich hell... via Cory and Kottke.

Solar Generator

I'm sure this thing is safe but if I was an ant I wouldn't go near it...

Link via Gizmodo.

Yo Yoda

Watch Yoda busta move in this uber funky easter egg treat from the new Star Wars DVD.

Link to Google video.

Creature Comforts

Best. Movie. Ever.

An early ancestor of Nick Park's "Wallace & Gromit" characters (Aarman Animiation in the UK). The Jaguar in the tree is my absolute favorite character in this Academy Award winning short. His dialogue is actually the recording of a Brazilian medical student living in the UK. Hysterical.

Link to the 5:00 min short - hosted by iFilm.

Social Isolation?

A great personal essay by Alex Pang, Institute For The Future (Menlo Park, CA) on the Joy of the iPod...

Link via DaveP at BoingBoing.

Giant Squid

Japanese researchers photograph a Giant Squid... but can they find a 50 gallon drum of tzatziki and an 80 foot wide grill?

Link to National Geographic article.

World of Music: Visualization

A visualization of 10,000 artists and how they are related to each other...
Music geek nirvana.

Link to the Stanford University project page.

Robo-Baywatch

It doesn't look as good in a Speedo but this robot design concept for rescuing distressed swimmers is pretty cool.

Nice to see a robot concept that doesn't say:
"kill, crush, destroy" or "bite my shiny metal ass".

Link via Engadget.

Duck and Cover

... or make a suit out of Tin Foil ASAP!
If you can't do that just keep looking up for some awesome aurora's over the next couple of nights.

Doc Searles has a posted about a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) that's headed for earth -- expected to arrive Sept 14th or 15th.

Link.

A Caveat on "Yes Men"

Salon.com's Scott Rosenberg writes:

"So of course Michael Brown, and all the other Michael Browns in the Bush administration, didn't tell Bush the truth about what was happening. "Everything's fine, sir! Carry on with your vacation!" Even if they actually knew, which seems unlikely, they understood -- as you can bet every commander in Iraq knows -- that to do so was to ask to be fired. Mr. Bush is to hear only what Mr. Bush (and Messrs. Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rove) wants to hear. Anything else is disloyalty -- a firing offence.
Any organization run on such principles is, of course, a juggernaut of dysfunction, headed for the ditch".

Link to the full Salon.com article.

Guerilla Drive-Ins

Aside from the MPAA sliding down ropes from Black-ops Helicopters to bust copyright infringers, this looks way cool.
I wonder if the cars get steamed up?

Link via Gizmodo.

Boot Windows from a USB flash drive

Toms Hardware has a review on a pretty useful and cool gadget here.

Satellite Imagery of New Orleans

Comparative imagery of a Highway interchange in New Orleans, pre- and post-Katrina


Comparative imagery of Gormley Stadium, City Park, pre- and post-Katrina


Comparative imagery of City Park in New Orleans, pre- and post-Katrina


From GlobalSecurity.org.

BBC TV channels heading to the net

...and so it begins:

"The BBC reports that it's "TV channels will be made available on the internet,BBC Director General Mark Thompson has confirmed.He announced plans for the MyBBCPlayer,which will allow viewers to legally download seven days of programmes,at the Edinburgh Television Festival.He said he hoped the service would launch next year".

This could be pretty cool.

Link via the good folks at SmartMobs.

Bram Cohen on P2P TV

A great post from Chris Anderson (The Long Tail) about his encounter with Bram Cohen (inventor of Bittorrent) at FOO camp ("Friends of O'Reilly") this weekend. The topic: P2P TV.

Link.

Cuban on how the NYTimes spins...

This is a pretty cool post from Mark on how what he said in an email interveiw was spun by Andrew Ross Sorkin, business reporter for the NY Times.
The 5th Estate indeed.

Link to Cuban's post and text of the email interview (which includes a link to to the NY Times pubished article.

Reminds me of the Sesame Street segment:
"One of these things is not like the other" :-)