Engineered and built by Found, a Scottish musical collective, Cybraphon is a robot that performs music according to its mood. Its mood changes according to what people say about it online: When lots of people talk about him, he’s happy, and when all he hears is silence, he gets melodramatic. Check it out in the following video:
Apple has claimed that jailbreaking iPhones – that is, altering their software to allow the user to run applications without restrictions – could turn them into tools for deliberately bringing down cellphone networks.
The claims come in a response to a government review which takes place every three years to decide which situations should be exempted from copyright laws. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a request asking that the act of modifying the iPhone’s software should be deemed legal for people who own a handset.
Because the software is licensed (whereas the handset is sold), Apple maintains that modifying the software is a breach of copyright. It rejects the argument that such behavior is covered by section 117 of the US Copyright Act which allows for situations such as installing software on a computer or making a back-up copy to protect against losing it if the computer is damaged.
The most striking note of its response, however, is the claim that jailbreaking makes it easier to access the baseband processor, the component which connects the handset to the network – in this situation, Apple warns that jailbreaking could modify the software controlling this processor and lead to GPS functions failing.
More seriously, it says jailbreaking could make phones more vulnerable to hackers. As they would be able to access the baseband processor, this could let them change the Exclusive Chip Identification (ECID), the number which identifies the handset to the nearest cellphone tower. Apple claims that this creates a risk of two phones with the same ECID connecting to a tower simultaneously, which could potentially see one user unable to make or receive calls. (PC World questions this claim, noting that iPhones have a secondary identification number built into the SIM.)
According to the filing (PDF link), the consequences could be more serious than inconvenience, Apple says somebody hacking into a jailbroken phone and controlling the baseband processor software might also be able to get round limits on the amount of data the handset can send at once. At best this might allow them to evade data call charges. At worst they could deliberately overload the cellphone tower and crash its operating software
Sony Pictures just released a new trailer for Neil Blomkamp’s upcoming sci-fi movie, District 9, which will be released in movie theaters on August 14, 2009. Enjoy!
By Jimmy Rogers (@me)
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
When Star Trek: TNG ended and the franchise melted into less compelling series like Voyager and DS9 (let’s not even DISCUSS Enterprise), we “space action show” geeks felt a little lost. Nothing really stood out and said, “Here’s that great formula you know and love.” Then Stargate: SG1 came along and for many it was like a second wind. O’Neill, Carter, Jackson, and Teal’c filled our evenings once again with heroic space explorers fighting against evil and discovering amazing technologies. Their mission wasn’t far off from “to seek out new life and new civilizations, and to boldly go…”
Stargate: SG1, like all good things, had to come to an end. Atlantis kept alive the spirit of Stargate (fairly valiantly, in my opinion), but eventually that story also came to an end. The spiritual void opened up again. Other shows, like Heroes, Lost, and Battlestar Galactica, filled in the gaps for some, but personally I bided my time with SG1 reruns and Doctor Who.
Now, a new Stargate star is about to rise. Stargate Universe, or SGU for short, will launch this Fall. After Comic-Con, we have a new tidbit to share with you:
Ok, after that geektastic video explosion, here are my thoughts. The creators of SGU clearly want to piggyback on Battlestar Galactica’s incredible popularity with some audiences that may not have otherwise been into Scifi. It looks like the cast IS essentially on a Battlestar, so it’s hard to wiggle out of that one. It also appears that they want to include some more of the “darker” aspects that BSG was known for. This is definitely a shift away from the more happy-go-lucky mood of SG1 (despite dire, world-ending danger at all times).
That being said, I still see potential for SGU. It’s hard to tell from the clip, but the formula seems to be intact. That is, stern military commander, genius/scientist who likes to blunder ahead in the name of exploration, and….well that’s the groundwork anyway. The model is flexible as we saw in Stargate: Atlantis. There is time enough to find a burly native and a sexy second-in-command!
While it’s hard to pull much more out of a < 3 minute clip, I do like the tip they made to the geeks in the audience (the Hoth reference). In a darker Stargate universe, a youngish geek character will not only add occasional bits of humor, but might also give the fans a “seat in the cockpit,” so to speak.
Whatever the outcome, I hope that SGU improves upon the Stargate franchise instead of simply leeching off of a very loyal fan base. Dial the gate!
How did the clip strike you? Have you got any early feelings about SGU? Share them below or let me know on Twitter!
[Via io9] [Crew picture from Fused Film]
Always remember: Smoking contributes to and empowers the imminent robot death squad apocalypse.
Thanks Alex!
Environmental activists boldly went to the roof of Hewlett Packard’s roof to protest against “excuses” and “backtracking” over use of toxic materials – then let Captain Kirk deliver their message.
William Shatner recorded a message (audio link) for the firm’s staff which was left on the voicemail of all employees. He said HP had gone back on a promise to produce a computer without the use of any toxic chemicals by 2009 and was now two years behind schedule.
The call came after protesters scaled the firm’s global headquarters in Palo Alto, California and wrote the words “Hazardous Products” (a play on HP) so large that Greenpeace said the text covered an area equivalent to two and a half basketball courts. Clearly recognizing the risks of claims of hypocrisy, the protestors say they used non-toxic children’s fingerpaint.
The toxins at the heart of the controversy are PVC plastic and brominated flame retardants. Greenpeace notes that the former creates the carcinogen dioxin when burned while the latter is released during use and contaminates household dust before building up in humans and animals.
HP concedes it has changed its original timetable but maintains that all its new products will be free of toxins by the end of 2011. (Servers and printers may be excepted from this deadline.) The firm said of the protest that “The unconstructive antics at HP’s headquarters today did nothing to advance the goals that all who care about the environment share.”
Produced to hype up the upcoming summer blockbuster “G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra.”, this viral marketing video shows a soldier riding a half pipe using a Delta 6 Accelerator Suit.
Now that San Diego Comic Con 2009 is over, there are of course a billion pictures on the web, most involving people in insane (and by insane, I mean “holy cow, you made that?!”) costumes. I spent some time trudging through the crowd on Flickr so you don’t have to, and here are some of the coolest – from the sexy to the scary to the WTF.
The best part about this picture is that this is probably only a drop in the bucket; there’s 100 in every crowd. Oh, and that expression on the guy’s face? “Suck it, Jabba.” – koadmunkee (CC)
By Casey Lynn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
I had heard rumors of the Barnes & Noble eReader, set to compete with Amazon by offering a software alternative to the Kindle that takes advantage of your existing devices like an iPhone or Blackberry. So when I received an email this morning encouraging me to try it out and offering (gasp!) 6 free books, I decided to give it a whirl. I should say upfront that I’m not a huge fan of ebooks just because I collect books like some people collect records – but I do use Stanza on my iPhone. Though I offer the below critique with the caveat that if you’re using a Blackberry rather than an iPhone and don’t have access to other ebook readers like Stanza, then the B&N reader might actually be a good choice.
For those of you familiar with Stanza, the B&N eReader looks basically the same. It syncs up to your B&N account much like Stanza syncs up to Fictionwise, and displays the books currently in your library. The interface for reading the actual books is basically the same as well (as you can see from the screenshots below – B&N to the left, Stanza to the right); one addition I noted is that the B&N reader will scroll the text automatically, but as someone who reads very quickly, I’d rather turn pages. But when it comes to the reader itself – B&N is right up there with Stanza as far as readability and design (on an iPhone, at least).
The problem that I encounter with the B&N eReader comes in with the actual obtaining of books. First of all, these six “free” books provided when you sign up – including Dracula (shown above) and Pride and Prejudice – are free anyway. As in, they’re all in the public domain and can be downloaded in seconds on Stanza through Project Gutenberg or several other providers. The most downloaded book from Project Gutenberg on Stanza is The Art of War, which when searching through B&N’s iPhone bookstore will cost you $8 as a download, as will Don Quixote. I remember reading that B&N had partnered with Google to provide Google Print’s collection of public domain books for free, so I was momentarily confused when I saw these prices – until I realized that if you search and get a list of results for all ebook versions of any given public domain book, you have to scroll down and down and down to get to the free version, which you then have to “purchase” and check out like any other book, including putting in your credit card number.
You can also search for books on the iPhone Barnes & Noble Bookstore app, but it’s actually a port of the entire online store rather than just ebooks. In order to search just among ebooks, you have to go to the website – which is what shows up when you click on “Shop for eBooks” within the eReader itself. The website doesn’t seem to be iPhone optimized so it’s a little annoying to navigate.
However, I will give the B&N iPhone bookstore kudos for one cool feature – you can take a picture of a book and it will pull up the listing for it. However, it looks like the coolness of this is currently crippled by a lack of common sense. You only get a listing for the version of the book pictured (so for example, a hardback) rather than a listing for all available versions. So the camera feature was essentially useless since I ended up having to search by the title anyway in order to find an ebook version.
So after spending some time with the Barnes & Noble eReader, I can’t really think of why you would want to use it over Stanza (or perhaps other eReaders that I’m not familiar with) unless you just have B&N brand loyalty. The interface for the reader itself is essentially the same, and obtaining books is considerably easier with Stanza. For the record, books that aren’t in the public domain aren’t any cheaper on Stanza since you buy them through Fictionwise. They are slightly cheaper for Kindle, but the iPhone Kindle app is inferior to both of these. If B&N wants to make a dent in this market, what they need to do is offer ebooks cheaper. Or they might benefit from a model like, say, the science fiction book club where you get to pick a certain number of free books when you sign up and are then locked into buying more later.
But offering me “free” stuff that is already free is kind of lame. If you want to read Dracula (which you should) on your iPhone, download Stanza instead. And as a bonus, Stanza has partnerships with some publishers like Harlequin and Randomhouse to offer free books which are available with just a click in the app, no web browser or credit card required – I recommend Blood Engines by T.A. Pratt.