http://www.compcoach.com/ Technology and Life en Copyright 2008 Fri, 17 Mar 2006 12:46:21 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Yes I'm a little late on this one, but something happened the other day that compelled me to write about the blackberry issue. Almost everyone in America has heard of the Blackberry, the handheld marvel of technology that lets customers check their e-mail, surf the web, and do a whole host of other activities. http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000043.html http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000043.html Technology Fri, 17 Mar 2006 12:46:21 -0800 They’re at it again. That’s right folks; the media conglomerates of this country have decided that instead of actually spending money to fix problems, they’re going to spend money to sue their customers. A funny idea really, considering that their customers are the ones who gave it to them in the first place, which would make most businesses quite happy. This time, it’s the movie industry. It seems that online file trading has eaten such a large hole in their pocket, and the only way for them to get money back is to sue. Of course that’s assuming that the poor 13 year old they find can actually pay the settlement, but why sweat the small stuff? It’s no secret that people have been trading movies online for years. I have many friends with collections of downloaded movies. I have also never seen these friends watch said movies. The reason is that the quality on most of them is so poor that going to Blockbuster and renting the movie is much more preferable to grainy, audio challenged recordings coming off the internet. It is true that new technology is making these recordings better and even promising DVD quality, but it’s just not the same. People create these movies in many new and exciting ways. The timeless CAM movies, (whereby a person sneaks a video camera into a theatre and proceeds to record the whole thing hoping not to get caught) are starting to be replaced by DVD rips and even stolen copies of pre-releases. They are also starting to show up all over Asia, which has become the Mecca of copyright infringement. All of these different techniques have the movie industry dumbfounded as to how to stop the proliferation of pirated flicks. To be honest, there really is no way to stop the Asia problem. As soon as a movie is released on DVD it has been copied and put onto thousands of shelves all across the Pacific. Sure, new systems can be implemented making it harder to copy movies, but when someone’s food and shelter is on the line, they will find a way to crack the latest code. Also, with foreign governments relatively unwilling to curb the problem for economic reasons, there is little recourse for American companies. Stopping the problems here at home could be a little easier. Movie theatres have become experts at spotting and stopping the CAM. Not that this is a great loss to the piracy world, since most of these movies are near impossible to understand, and the rest bounce around enough to make you sick. The sharing of copied DVDs is a little harder and might require some more technology. There might be a day when to view a movie you will have to be connected to a phone line or network that will allow your DVD player to authenticate the disc before playing it. This would also work with computers, where software designed specifically not to allow for recording could be created, along with discs which are not directly readable. If you can create a multi-million dollar animation that is almost as good as real life, you can create some pretty good security methods. Now again, we face a problem. No matter how good the protection, how advanced the security key, or how wonderful encryption, someone will crack it. There are even prizes set up to see who can crack the latest encryption first, and the results become open source. So then what’s the solution? I really don’t think you can curb the pirating of media. The reason is that we all want to be entertained, and none of us want to pay for it. Watching an actor on TV talk about how piracy impacts their paycheck doesn’t help either. Someone making $10 million per movie just doesn’t draw my sympathy. If you want people to pay for your work, make it the best out there. So we are back to the 13 year old who can’t pay the settlement. What have they, and their parents learned from everything? Not much more than the movie industry is a bloated, out of date empire which is slowly watching its monopoly come down, much as the music industry did. That downloading is a crime and charging $10 per ticket for the latest box office release isn’t. The movie industry should take a hint from the record companies. Starting services like iTunes and Napster allowed for the music industry to at least start to reap the rewards of the online community and not suffer by it. Charge people a reasonable (as in less than $10) fee to download a movie which is good for 5 days, or watch it online. Start enticing people to do the right thing and they just might. Copyright 2004 WKLiebhaber. All rights reserved. http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000040.html http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000040.html Technology Fri, 05 Nov 2004 23:56:46 -0800 I feel as though I am on the back side of a trend. Sitting in the airport the other day, I saw more types of phones, phone accessories, and uses for phones than I ever have before. Sure, we’ve had camera phones for a while now, and mixing PDAs with phones is certainly nothing new, but now you can get it all in one. I am starting to feel inadequate. My phone, which I use countless times each day, is just a phone. That’s right, I admitted it, I just have a phone. Sure it can browse the wireless web, or view pictures that someone sends to it, but all in all, I just use it to talk. This really has me wondering now, what would I do with a camera, a PDA, even video games built into my phone? There is just one simple answer, talk. I own one of the first PDA/phone combinations, the Kyocera 6035 Smartphone. I loved and cherished the phone for about six months before reality struck and I realized the only time I ever bothered to use the phone as a Palm Pilot was when I needed a phone number. I was carrying around a brick in my pocket for a few simple numbers I needed to lookup each week. After starting to feel left behind recently, I went to the local cell store and decided to check out the latest models. I am truly amazed at the number of phones that do the same thing, with almost no variation, and they all sell well. There are the basic lines that are just a phone with a few features like wireless web or picture viewing. Then you can step up the camera phones, where just in case you felt like taking pictures of everything and spending serious money each month to send them to someone else, you could. And finally, you can buy the camera phone, palm pilot, ultimate business tool phone. Of course, why waste my time with the other plain phones, when I could go right to the mack daddy. After picking the first one up, a Treo 600 Palm based phone, I realized it wasn’t much smaller than my behemoth from just a few years earlier. The second thing I noticed was that instead of being easy to operate, you had to hunt the number keys down in a ‘thumb sized’ keyboard of miniscule keys. No wonder we have so many traffic accidents with people trying to dial. Finally, I realized that I had to pay more on my service plan each month just to access the internet features and really use the phone for something useful, like e-mail. A waste. The next wasn’t any better. Still a bad keypad, still no built in wireless ability, and still no amazing feature that would allow me to really want to use it as more than a phone. Did I mention they tried to sell it to me as a MP3 player and a phone? Yeah, just what I need to replace my smaller 10GB Ipod, a 32mb cell phone. I walked out, confused about why I had been jealous in the first place. My phone works perfectly for what I do. I talk to people constantly, I store phone numbers, and I occasionally use the built in calculator to figure gas mileage. Why should I be jealous of someone who can afford a bigger, flashier piece of equipment that they use to talk to people, store phone numbers, and occasionally for other tasks? Walking back to my car I finally realized the absurdity of it all. There sat a business man having lunch outdoors, talking on his state of the art, all-in-one cell marvel, writing an appointment down in a paper planner. Now I realize that a phone is just a phone. We all use it for the same thing, talking, communicating, and connecting. When the phone tries to become more than what it is, people still use it as just a phone. Copyright 2004 WKLiebhaber. All rights reserved. http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000039.html http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000039.html Technology Thu, 04 Nov 2004 18:22:07 -0800 Here we are again, on the eve of a presidential election unlike any we have ever seen before. The nation is divided, the electorate polarized, and the candidates stand ready to accept the nation’s highest office. This all has me completely sick of elections. Don’t get me wrong, I voted, and I fully promote voting. The problem is the inane drone of the TV. The pundits have spoken, and from what I can discern, no one knows a thing about what will happen. The one thing they can’t stop talking about, though, is the new touch-screen voting machines installed in many key states including Florida, Nevada, and Missouri. It is amazing that with the technical revolution this country has experienced in the last three decades that it has taken us this long to undertake voting via computer. The computer allows for quicker voting, instant tallies, and almost completely eliminates the recount. We still haven’t mastered the art of voting by paper. Punch-card ballots, optical-scan ballots, and absentee ballots are all subject to question. Voters can’t figure out the punch box A or B. So what makes us think that by moving it all to touch screens and computers everything will change? Perhaps it’s our desire to blame someone else, the computer, the program, or the system that got it there. The problems that are always brought up include manipulation, hacking, loss of data, and various other computer dooms. Although valid, it seems as though these fears could be easily mitigated, if the proper technology were used. Security devices have taken giant leaps in just the last four years since the last election. The presence of smart cards, biometrics, and other security devices is now commonplace among many business computers. Why can’t we implement these into voting machines to reduce risk? Imagine a person registering to vote by submitting a finger print along with their regular voter registration form. When they show up at a polling place, they are asked to submit their finger print which automatically verifies their eligibility and voting status. From there, the voter then proceeds to a machine which again registers their finger print and loads the appropriate ballot. The person makes their voting selections, is printed a receipt for verification, and the data is immediately stored on a server closed off from the outside internet. I can see many of these scenarios that would almost completely eliminate voter fraud and add an extra amount of ease to the voting process, since voters could vote at any polling place in the state. Each machine would automatically know which version of the ballot to use and would therefore eliminate the necessity of specific precinct voting locations. The only fault with this near utopian situation is that computers never, ever, ever, act the way we want them to. Hard drives crash, memory inexplicably stops working, programs have glitches, and almost anything else that can happen, does. That is the problem with our current voting situation, and will continue to be the problem as we progress into the future of electronic voting. As much as we can harness technology, it can still be a worthy adversary. There is, however, the other argument, that we are the reason the technology goes awry. Partisan politics has been blamed in voters claiming the computer switched their votes after they had been cast. The only explanation, of course, is that programmers, hidden down in a dark room, made the machine do it. After all, the computer only runs because we tell it to. The only way to valid, uncontested electronic elections is to standardize. With more than one electronic voting machine manufacturer, and many different software choices, it is no wonder that we have progressed little from paper balloting. A standard ensures that all ballots are presented as accurately as possible, substitute machines can be brought online with greater ease, and counting is done in the same manner for all ballots. The future of electronic voting doesn’t do much to influence this campaign. For all intents and purposes it is over. The balloons are waiting to drop for an uncertain winner, and the loser has their lawyers on speed dial. Think what could be done if we knew results instantly. Whether or not your candidate wins, one thing is for certain, America deserves a break. Copyright 2004 WKLiebhaber. All rights reserved. http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000038.html http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000038.html Technology Tue, 02 Nov 2004 22:24:16 -0800 Unless you have been hiding under a rock recently, you have heard about the three major worms that are spreading their way across the internet. MyDoom, Netsky, and Bagle are all aimed at shutting down networks by infecting computers and using them to send out massive amounts of e-mail. Their intent is also to launch attacks against major companies, and now attack each other. http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000036.html http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000036.html Technology Wed, 03 Mar 2004 21:42:44 -0800 Well Yahoo is at it again, trying to gain the search engine market share from Google. They have recently announced partnerships that would bring at least 1 billion new documents to their database, and feed them with fresh daily searchable content from NPR, eBay, and other content providers. In addition, they have also revamped paid inclusion, letting online marketers pay for one site rather than register on many. http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000035.html http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000035.html Technology Tue, 02 Mar 2004 09:32:13 -0800 In yet another report released today, this time in Sweden, video games are charged with making the world’s youth fat and violent. According to the report, kids are rehearsing scenes that they might play out later in life. Video games are also causing kids to become lazy, not going out to get the exercise they require. This is nothing new. http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000034.html http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000034.html Technology Mon, 01 Mar 2004 16:07:51 -0800 This little thing called the internet is getting bigger every day. According to a new report out by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 44 percent of internet users have contributed to the sharing of information and ideas online. The most popular methods were posting pictures and music, followed by personal web pages, newsgroups, and blogs. http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000033.html http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000033.html Technology Sun, 29 Feb 2004 17:28:57 -0800 Well now that the search engines realize that they are all pretty much the same, they have started to go after each other in new ways. Overture is suing Google, Yahoo has taken over Inktomi, and Alexa is a patent filing machine. This is the new search engine war, not about making a better search engine, just the only one. http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000032.html http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000032.html Technology Sat, 28 Feb 2004 20:21:18 -0800 The digital age is upon us, embrace it and move forward. These are the words that are spoken almost every day. Computers are popping up everywhere, the world is becoming wireless, and now you can do almost everything online. However, even in this age of technological marvels, I still own a pen and use it almost every day. http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000031.html http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000031.html Technology Fri, 27 Feb 2004 23:13:59 -0800 Apparently software giant Microsoft is planning an “interim release” of its dominant Windows XP operating system to carry it until 2006. Although the new release would not carry any major new features or systems, it would patch the holes found in the current Windows XP and act as a service pack. http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000030.html http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000030.html Technology Thu, 26 Feb 2004 18:41:35 -0800 The last few years have seen the development of laptops that are rivaling desktops for performance and price. We have grown from 10” to 13” and now all the way up to 17” screens. Laptops now have DVD burners, 7-in-1 smart card readers, and some even have full size keyboards which include a 10-key number pad. Unfortunately, this all comes with a price. http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000029.html http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000029.html Technology Thu, 26 Feb 2004 12:30:55 -0800 The MyDoom epidemic started back in January. The worm was initially designed to take over computers, sending massive spam e-mail attacks and launching denial of service attacks. MyDoom has officially been named the worst worm ever by security services company F-Secure. It is the fastest spreading worm in history. This new variation is a little stronger. http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000028.html http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000028.html Technology Wed, 25 Feb 2004 10:44:33 -0800 During his keynote speech at the RSA 2004 conference, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates outlined his plans for a spamless future. Included were a new system called “Caller-ID for E-Mail” and creating certificates that could be used to ensure an e-mail is authentic, much the same as a SSL certificate ensures that a web server is authentic. http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000027.html http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000027.html Technology Tue, 24 Feb 2004 21:37:18 -0800 What search engine do you use? Chances are it’s either Google, Yahoo!, or MSN. These search engines might not necessarily be the best, but we use them more than all of the others combined. Web surfers are fiercely loyal to their favorite search engines, they snub the very thought of using another one. So how did they pick theirs in the first place? http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000026.html http://www.compcoach.com/archives/000026.html Technology Tue, 24 Feb 2004 17:28:21 -0800