Technolotics #42 – Palm Jam

Technolotics - An antique show about technology

https://garethstack.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/42_technolotics.mp3

Listen: Episode 42
Watch: Youtube

Notes

Is Blue sky R&D dead?

Scientific capital is not being replenished via Blue Sky research.
Start-ups are being locked out of the market by patent and trade secrets litigation.
Cold War era brought us the transistor and Arpanet, seeds of todays information economy at great private and public expense – Kansian pump priming of the economy via public and corporate research spending
Bell Labs, Xerox PARC and IBM’s Labs allowed Blue sky research into areas with no apparent commercial applications.
Research labs became an unaffordable luxury. Closest is Google’s 20 percent time.
Researchers now are under pressure to legitimize research by demonstrating it’s potential as a marketable product.
Where then is the opportunity to do Blue sky research?

Academia? No – increasingly accademic research is part funded by business

IP and trade secret laws prevent new ideas from coming to market.

Links

Ars Technica article

Update on email rummaging

We previously reported – plans are afoot to automatically scan the email of every uk citizen, and block ‘objectionable’ websites at the ISP level
One of our viewers contact his MP, and recieved an interesting reply

Social Celebrity – The strange story of Brooke “Brookers” Brodack

Youtube star Brooke “Brookers” Brodack has crossed over into mainstream media.
Her profile on youtube has had almost 2 mil views
Over 13000 subscribers to her videos on youtube.
Brookes video consist primarily of her singing along to songs
Spotted by Carson Daly who became a devoted fan.
Brookers has signed a talent/development deal to Daly’s company Carson Daly Productions.
She will work on developing content for Tv, Internet and mobile outlets.

Links

Variety.com article
Youtube director profile of Brooke “Brookers” Brodack.

Short Stories

Otavo

Your questions answered – social bookmarking, question asking and to-do lists.
Users can:

Ask and answer questions, organise and comment on bookmarks and share goals which are called quests

Users rewarded for inviting new users and adding quests.
Question is, is it good enough to abandon your current bookmarking site eg. del.icio.us?

Can you import the bookmarks and to-do lists you might already have?

Links

Otavo.com
TechCrunch article on Otavo

Finally someone stands up to the MPAA punks

MPAA and Universal Pictures are suing Shawn Hogan for downloading Meet the Fockers over BitTorrent.
Hogan denies the accusation and states he already owns the film on Dvd.
Hogan has declined to settle for $2500 and will fight the case in court.
Most people sued by the MPAA or RIAA under similar accusations settle due to the large legal fees that would be incurred fighting the case in court.
As we have stated a previous show, very tenuous evidence is often used by MPAA etc. to prove piracy

Photos of computer screen and an IP address supplied to Tiscali to prove copyright infringement.

Hogan however has the means and the desire to fight.
This provides the first opportunity to resolve issues relevatant to these cases:

How the associations get access to ISP records
whether you can tie someone to an IP address in the age of Wi-Fi, anonymyzing networks, IP spoofing, Zombie networks etc.

Links

Wired News:Shawn Hogan, Hero

Tired of selling your soul? Freecycle!

Simple idea: Rather than throwing out something perfectly usable that you no longer want or need, give it to someone else for free: Freecycle it!
Freecycle Network is made up of individual groups which give away and get stuff for free.
Started in May 2003 to promote waste reduction in Tucson’s downtown and help save desert landscape from being taken over by landfills
Members email a list of any unwanted objects to other members in the group who then can respond if they want the item.
The giver then can decide who shall recieve the unwanted item.
Everything shared is free, legal and appropriate for all age levels.

Links

Freecycle.org
Freecycle groups in Ireland

AMD to buy ATI

TCAL Story
Hard OCP explanation of the purchase
FinFacts article

Fight the news

Games for Change conference this month – showcased many games with political objectives
A variety of controversial games have been released dealing with contemporary political issues
Peacemaker – strategy game – resolve the middle east conflict as either the Israeli prime minister or the Palestinian president
Food Force – released by the UN – explains the difficulty of providing aid to a war zone
A forse more powerful – teaches nonviolent political strategy
Dafur is Dying – released by MTV & tied to a real world campaign – where players must support thier village
Games already carry indoctrinatory messages – look at every action strategy shooter featuring US troops
Republican party used games to ‘illustrate’ political points during 2003 campaign
Some believe games are a highly effective way of explaining complex systems
More research needed to verify pedagoic efficacy
A struggle to keep the games interesting

Will this trend make things worse, or even the playing field?

[1]

Dating 2.0

Techcrunch takes a look at the latest Web2.0 dating sites
As with other web2.0 services they currently make up a tiny proportion of their market

with more traditional sites Match.com & Yahoo personals dominating

Consumating – hipsters, tagging, contests, celebration of wierdness
Engage – matchmaking

users act as daters or matchmakers – viral quality
compatibility votes

Greatboyfriends.com (and girlfriends) – friends and family leave family – which is then verified
Matchtag – social network with activities – users post activities – pick best respondent – then carry out the preprepared date
MingleNow – groups meet up by favourite bar / restaurant cafe

interesting as it moves away from just dating

Poddater (remember podato?) – uses create videos which other users download and review
Prescription4Love – users with unique medical conditions / disabilities can meet
Verbdate – integrates skype chat, flickr photos, and tags
Wikia Personals – free global personals via wiki
Problem with many of these sites – US only! Tiny user populations

Links

[2]

Media pimp

Gareth

New porn only clone of YouTube
Play almost any megadrive game online
First Look – Valve Portal
Downhill Duel – best flash game ever?
Top 100 Science fiction books
Great Live Buck 65 Performance
This weeks theme music

Francis

Make a steadycam for $14
Item/Lending sharing in Dublin
Tourist Remover: Remove unwanted items from snapshots.
RiffTrax: Alternative commentaries on your favourite movies.