Computer Tips -Tech Info

Category: General Web/Tech

  • Artists revolting against DRM

    This is under the security tab because DRM software protection has proven to be a computer security issue… Spyware Confidential is reporting on artists revolting against the Sony DRM. According to the story…

    My Morning Jacket, the artists who recorded the copy protected CD “Z” I mentioned here, are doing more than protesting Sony BMG’s use of DRM spyware. They are revolting. Yesterday I read that My Morning Jacket was doing their own recall of the affected CDs. Now I see they are burning unrestricted copies of their CD and mailing them to users. Hmm… I wonder if they are breaking the law under the DMCA.

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  • Google Music

    Beta news is reporting on Google Music. They say it will make it easier to find artists, album titles and lyrics. Not too long ago there was a report that the Recording industry was going to wage a war on lyric sites… Apparently Google will also provide links to music downloads if the music is available from paid download services.

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  • Music industry to take on lyric sites

    In another move that will frustrate millions… The recording industry is set to take on sites that provide lyrics (or scores) of licensed songs. I know I’ve searched for song lyrics many times because I couldn’t make out what the words were by listening to the song (and the label was too cheap to give lyrics in the packaging (or the type was small enough to require a scanning electron microscope…)) Anyway guitar tab sites are under the microscope as well. Don’t expect just fines and a site takedown either…..

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  • Self destructing messages

    Good luck Jim… this message will self destruct in 40 seconds… A UK mobile (cell) company says it’s developed self-destructing text messages. In the spring they hope to introduce self destructing email/photo and voice messages. The recipient receives a link to the message and once viewed the message “self destructs” in 40 seconds. The good things they claim from this…

    ultimately no one will ever have to worry about their messages or pictures ending up in the wrong hands ever again,

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  • Frontier Labs – nexblack

    I know it’s not an ipod… but I’m looking forward to hearing some word when Fronteir Labs releases their “Nexblack”. For background…. the nexblack is priced at around $89 (at the frontier labs store), but I’ve found $69 here. It’s a portable mp3/wma/wma with drm/ogg player (according to the spec sheet.) It uses AA batteries (2), has built-in recording, uses compactflash cards and according to the spec sheet will have a line-in (line-in recording as well). It also will have fm radio functions.

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  • Wikipedia Class action suit?

    ZDNet’s the Open Source blog is talking about a possible Classaction suit against the wikipedia. He calls it the next SCO suit and summarizes things like this…

    The SCO suits were an attempt to shut down open source based on the idea that everything is owned, or comes from something that is owned, and so the use of any code requires payment to someone.

    While that lawsuit is winding down, a new threat is now emerging. It’s a class action against Wikipedia, aimed at ending open source information by demanding that “someone take responsibility” for everything published on the Web.

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  • Electronics and Surplus stuff

    For some time I’ve meant to do a post on some of my favorite places to find odd electronics components (and surplus stuff…) Something about electronics components is that there’s so much potential… anyway, I just placed an order with All Electronics for a handful of odds and ends. They’re probably the newest place on my “I’ve got to look at the catalog when it comes in” list. You’ll find pretty much nothing (or very little) in the way of finished consumer electronics….

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  • Pakistan/India hacker skirmishes.

    The Hindustan times has an article on the latest round of India vs. Pakistani hacker/IT online skirmishes. It sounds as though there has been a recent rash of back and forth with Pakistani cracker groups trying to break into and deface Indian web sites and India trying to get word out to help secure the sites against the attacks. This is not a new thing….

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  • Microsoft may pay for search users?

    Infoworld has an interesting article this afternoon, that suggests that Microsoft may pay users of their MSN search out of the ad revenue that Microsoft earns from their new adertising service. Speaking of Google, Bill Gates says…

    But they don’t share these advertising revenues with the end users who help them get the revenue, Gates said. “Google keeps all of the money with itself,” he added.

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  • Registrars not verifying contact information on domains?

    According to a GAO report one of the reasons that phishing and scam websites are because of a lack of enforcement and policing by registrars of accurate contact information. According to their study over 5% of sites had been registered with false data. ~2.5% had been registered with incomplete information. These findings come from a random sample of 300 domain names that they then did lookups on the domains.

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