Google introduced a new service called Latitude yesterday. It is a social networking service based on Google Maps that shows any friends that you have that are nearby. It can also be used to see the status of family that may be on the move, such as getting home from the airport after a rough flight. Check out the video below.
Whether geographical based computing will prove to be beneficial or not has yet to be decided, but Google has staked out their own territory in this market now. Do you think having such a service will improve your social life? And do you feel comfortable with having a powerful corporate entity tracking your movements? And what if the government offered this as a service?
Featured at the Nepcon world exposition in Japan, “Pack in Instance” is a new packing technology that allows you to perfectly pack sensitive items, regardless of size of item or boxes. Just insert packing material in the box, inject a special gel and… voilà!… instant protection for your valuable gear.
Thanks to a breakdown in a previous licensing agreement between YouTube and Warner Music, last month there was something of a witch hunt for any videos containing any songs from Warner’s library.
However, whereas most of the time when YouTube deletes videos due to a DMCA takedown notice, these videos are usually wholesale copies of content–for example, TV or movie clips, or music videos. Now, the videos that are disappearing are getting closer and closer to fair use territory. Early in the month, a number of fanvids were taken down, and now you’re not even allowed to sing a song. A large part of the reason may be automatic filtering systems designed to blindly recognize the music, leading to the same fate no matter what kind of video it is.
Many of you may be familiar with Corey Vidal, who did the Star Wars a cappella tribute:
The problem with all of this, of course, is that the law is unclear. Fair use is a subjective, four-factor test determined by courts on a case-by-case basis. Each factor has to be considered and weighed, and the weight of these different factors has actually varied in court decisions over the years. The Copyright Act (including the fair use doctrine) was written in 1976, when copyright really only involved professionals. The end user as part of the equation didn’t come up at all until the VCR was invented and the law had to deal with the idea of consumers making copies–and still, no one pictured the kind of wide dissemination that the Internet has made possible. Even the DMCA was written more than ten years ago, and these takedown measures that Warner is relying on were designed to deal with file-sharing, not with teenage girls singing “Winter Wonderland” in their bedrooms.
Of course, as much as I’d like to paint Warner as the big bully in all of this, it’s not as if they don’t have a legal leg to stand on. Even in the case of cover songs, someone owns that copyright. Not in the sound recording (i.e. Bing Crosby’s version of “Winter Wonderland”), but in the underlying composition. To cover a song, you have to deal with compulsory licenses or performing rights. And it’s still not clear as to whether something like a YouTube video counts as a public performance. Again, were these designed to deal with a noncommercial Internet video? No, but in copyright the law generally doesn’t distinguish between commercial and noncommercial use. Even in fair use, that’s only part of one of the four factors. (And for those of you who aren’t in the U.S., don’t even get me started on international copyright issues.)
The bottom line is that this is a really sticky mess. However, I suspect that Warner is hurting more from the bad PR than any damage that could have been done by these YouTube videos. Plus, they may want to remember a certain dancing baby. Last year, when Universal Music had that video taken down due to their copyright in the Prince song that’s playing in the background, the mother who posted the video took them to court (under a little-used cause of action for when a copyright holder sends a takedown notice in bad faith). The court said that a copyright holder must make a good faith effort to determine whether a video could be considered fair use before sending a takedown notice.
First the VCR, then Napster… now YouTube/remix. This is just the latest copyright crisis, and until there’s some actual law on the subject, everyone’s just going to keep flailing in the dark.
After waiting more than a year for new episodes, the folks from Blame Society Films have finally launched the second season of Chad Vader! What took you so long Chad, we missed you!
There’s nothing worse than that moment when you realize your data is gone. All the music, saved games, instrument presets, documents, and information that you took for granted are now lost forever. When my last hard drive crashed, there was the sickening moment when I realized the data was gone, and it was almost as hard to deal with as a break up.
Seagate has revamped its FreeAgent series of external drives. The drives now come with a five year warranty, and a fold out instruction page with less than 1,000 words.
I had the opportunity to test out all three of the drives in the line, The FreeAgent Go, FreeAgent Desk, and FreeAgent XTreme, and I am impressed. With a huge bang for the buck and more data storage than most people will ever need, the FreeAgent drives are definitely a choice to consider if you’re shopping for a portable storage solution.
The drives are sleek and have the coolest drive light I have ever seen. The display LEDs glow brightly when plugged, pulse in brightness when the drive is reading or writing data, and dim when it goes into standby. As an energy saver, all the drives automatically jump to standby after 15 minutes. The drives are simple to use. Simply plug them and start rocking. As if looks and ease aren’t enough, the drives are almost silent.
The FreeAgent Go is a tiny bit larger than an iPhone, and can easily fit in your pocket. The unit has a docking bay and leather case (sold separately) that eliminate the need to plug and unplug cables on your computer. While the included USB cable is only 3.5 feet, it’s a perfect carry along. I put the Go in my pocket and went to see some friends with my data, and found that the FreeAgent Go is the perfect portable drive. It took much less than I expected to pour my data onto their computers. The FreeAgent Go comes in several colors, and you can choose between three file capacities, 250GB, 320GB, and 500GB. You can get the 500GB for as low as $122, making this drive a cheap addition to your rig, and perfect for bringing the entire contents of your computer somewhere else.
The FreeAgent Desk and XTreme seem almost the same, with the exception of the casing and a coupe of features. They both have 7200 rpm drives, making them near the top of the line in speed. While the color is different (The Desk is silver and the XTreme is black), the only other feature that sets them apart is the interface. While the desk is USB 2.0 only, the XTreme also has ports for firewire and eSATA, giving it a leg up on speed. Both drives come in four storage sizes between 500GB and 1.5TB, and span in price from $140 to $280. You can also get them for much cheaper on Amazon.com.
The software that comes with the FreeAgent is easy to use. It includes some simple diagnostics, and automated backup controls, including setting specific folders and backup times. The software also includes an encryption option. While there are several steps to the encryption and decryption process, it’s nice to know that if someone takes my drive, they won’t get my data. I tested the drives by backing up my 168GB of media, documents, pictures, and studio sessions on all the drives… at the same time. In less than nine hours all three drives were complete When I Copied my music collection (50GB of MP3s) to the FreeAgent go, the transfer was complete in less than 90 minutes.
We’ve yet to see what the new drives’ reliability over time will be, but Seagate’s offerings look good, are easy to use, and are inexpensive – and that works for me! I’m impressed.
(Editor’s Note: [GAS] Contributor Brian Boyko had an earlier version of the Seagate FreeAgent drive – his hard drive crashed on him. However, Seagate promptly replaced the drive, and the replacement has continued working for 18 months so far.)
I don’t know about you, but I think there’s just something really wrong with this cake. It probably has something to do with our favorite Sith lord lovingly holding a baby girl. Oh well, I guess there are a lot of pregnant geekettes out there who would give a lot to get such a cake for their baby shower.
By hooking a $250 Motorola RFID reader and an antenna to his laptop, Chris Paget was able to easily harvest and clone multiple RFID identity documents while driving through San Francisco. Fortunately for the victims Chris is a white hat hacker and only did this to prove that using RFID-enabled identify cards can only be a bad thing for everyone.
This is going to be the last Super Bowl trailer I post this morning, I swear! With this new trailer for G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, we at last get a feel on how the movie will look like when it comes out in a few months. Enjoy!
Yep folks, geeks were truly blessed during the Super Bowl last night. First, there was a new exclusive trailer for Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen, and now, here’s a new one for the upcomming Star Trek movie. Enjoy!
Here’s the awesome 30-second Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen Trailer that ran during the Super Bowl game last night. It has everything to catch our attention: Explosions, evil robots, and even our friend Megan Fox, the wanna-be geekette.
However, whereas most of the time when YouTube deletes videos due to a 
There’s nothing worse than that moment when you realize your data is gone. All the music, saved games, instrument presets, documents, and information that you took for granted are now lost forever. When my last hard drive crashed, there was the sickening moment when I realized the data was gone, and it was almost as hard to deal with as a break up.
The drives are sleek and have the coolest drive light I have ever seen. The display LEDs glow brightly when plugged, pulse in brightness when the drive is reading or writing data, and dim when it goes into standby. As an energy saver, all the drives automatically jump to standby after 15 minutes. The drives are simple to use. Simply plug them and start rocking. As if looks and ease aren’t enough, the drives are almost silent. 
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