Category: Uncategorized

BBC News: Film fans get permanent downloads

Fans will pay £19.99 for a DVD of their chosen film plus two digital copies to keep indefinitely – one for their home computer and one for a portable device.

Universal said it could “completely revolutionise” how people watch movies.

However users will not be able to burn copies of the films to DVD themselves and the files will be compatible only with PCs and Windows software.

I’ll be surprised if this actually comes to fruition. It sounds like a fine idea and I’m sure a number of people if asked would say this is something they’d be interested in but in reality I think there would be little take up of the service. People don’t necessarily want to purchase digital copies of their movies they just want to watch movies they purchased when and where they want and on whatever device they choose. This might mean purchasing a digital file or it might mean ripping the content off the DVD they bought previously.

Tags: DRM, movies

BoingBoing reveals that Marvel Comics is continuing in its bid to steal the word “super-hero” from the public domain. They pick up on a suggestion made by Warren Ellis.

Let’s never use the term “super-hero” to describe a Marvel character. Let’s call them “underwear perverts”.

This really pisses me off as the only reason why they should be trying to trademark a term which is so generic is to stifle competition. It is blatant anti-competitive practice. Also bizarre given that DC Comics amongst others existed and were using the term superhero long before Marvel Comics published their first ‘underwear pervert’ comic book.

In fact DC is also in on the trademark claim.

Tags: comics

How does someone in Moscow step up to a cash machine and withdraw money from an account holder half a world away? Even when the debit card is still in the victim’s wallet? To show me how easy it was, two executives from MagTek Inc., one of the largest makers of credit card stripe readers, visited MSNBC.com and gave a demonstration.

read more | digg story

Tags: computer security, Digg, security

The 4GB flash drive encrypts all data with 128-bit AES, and then adds an extra layer of security: a self destruct feature. If anyone tries to use a brute-force attack to guess your password, the drive will automatically erase itself after 25 wrong guesses.

Now that’s what I call secure, or at least it would seem to be. The 128-bit AES encryption should be enough to prevent a brute-force attack in any case but the 25 guess limit adds a good second tier of security.

A question does come to mind though what is to prevent the copying of the encrypted data off the drive to stage a brute-force attack on the data using a different machine?

read more | digg story

Tags: computer security, Digg, security

Ho wow, very amazing, i never seen something like that built with Lego. Include all the staff !! (With screenshots)

This is friggin awesome. Fucking unbelievably detailed, I want one.
read more | digg story

Tags: Digg, LEGO

The movie V for Vendetta based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore is in cinemas from today and is stirring up controversy for a whole variety of reasons.

Debbie Schlussel: “V” for Propaganda

Time: The Mad Man in the Mask

Time Warner promotes terrorism and anti-Christian bigotry in new leftist movie, ‘V for Vendetta’

Tags: comics, movies

The BBC wildlife documentary Planet Earth is just simply stunning and worth a fair chunk of the licence fee all by itself. The footage of the snow leopard and her cub was quite magnificent and to discover that it took so much effort by the cameramen really puts it in perspective.

To basically sit on a mountain for weeks including over Christmas and New Year just waiting for that rare sighting to enable them to set up the cameras to catch the shots shows amazing fortitude. I’m in awe of their work.

The story of the giant panda and her new-born cub was heartbreaking simply because of the ludicrousness of their knife-edge existence. To have evolved to live on such a select diet of bamboo that exists only in a certain elevation of the highlands of China and that is so nutritionally poor is astonishing and bewildering. Panda cubs do not generally survive very long as the milk of their mothers is as nutritionally poor as their mother’s diet of bamboo.

Amazingly crisp and clear shots of the mother panda in her den tending to her new-born and again showed the skill of the BBC cameramen who was able to get these shots.

Tags: nature, science, TV

The Guardian has started a campaign to get the UK Government to stop charging for tax payer funded data; in the USA, it’s free – allowing the creation of great tools like Google Maps. Get behind it!
read more | digg story

Tags: Digg

I think the sexual predators have more to fear of the MySpace generation of kids than vice versa these days.

Boys’ MySpace prank results in sex crime arrest
Man allegedly tried to meet fictitious 15-year-old girl for sex

Tags: sex

The BBC showed tonight a Panorama documentary presented by Peter Taylor about the events of July 22nd 2005 that saw the killing of the Brazilian electrician Jean Charles De Menezes by firearms officers of the Metropolitan Police force.

No new evidence was revealed but it was good to have all the little bits of information that have leaked slowly out about the operation presented together as a whole here.

I think the most striking thing was that in contrast to the Israeli policy concerning suicide bombers where the bomb or suicide belt must be seen before the order to shoot to kill is given there is no such need contained within the Operation Kratos guidelines.

Officers operating under the Kratos guidelines must be sure that such a device is present but need not actually see it.

Also the Designated Senior Officer must give the order to fire but the firearms officers radios could not communicate with the command center as they were underground. Therefore the order was not given by the DSO immediately prior to the shooting, it was either given at a time before the officers had entered the underground station or was not given at all.

There was also in the programme the slightly bizarre denial that there was a shoot-to-kill policy to deal with suicide bombers but admission that the policy was to shoot at the head in order to cause immediate incapacity of the bomber. Now I’m sure there is a very slim chance that a person could survive being shot in the head to the extent that they have become incapacitated. So whilst strictly speaking the purpose isn’t to kill it will in all but the very rarest of circumstances actually result in the killing of the bomber.

Tags: police, security, terrorism