Archive for: nanny
When I was young, my mom and my grandmother were always yelling at me to put my coat on when I went outside. Often times I didn’t listen. And then I got grounded. I got to be familiar with my room fairly often when I was under 5′ tall.
But times have changed. Now, instead of having physical bodies yelling at me to put my coat on, I can have a net nanny coat hanger do it for me.
If you haven’t got it by now, the coat hanger is connected to the internet and knows the weather at all times. When it’s forcasted to be a bit blustery, the nanny coat hanger will be sure to let you know.
If only this were out of the concept stage…
Anyone who is “afraid” or not into technology will usually point out their distain for being watched, monitored, or snooped on. It’s a valid argument. Though one that I tend to look past as gadgets of all shapes, sizes, and colors yank my attention faster than –
It seems the current trend in nanny state movements is that of hidden (and sometimes not so hidden) cameras. Under the guise of security, the last several years have seen copious amounts of privacy revoked. For a few students at Northern Arizona University, I’m sure a few security cameras would gladly be exchanged for what is coming — RFID tracking ID’s.
Straight from a sci-fi/thriller book, students at NUA will find that their new ID’s are more telling than in past years, offering up those behind a screen hundreds of yards if not miles away a constant look at where they are at. At first, the excuse seems noble — they want to monitor students’ class attendance. But when you step back and look at the gross invasion of privacy these ID cards represent, you can begin to see how detrimental this is…
Reach back in the depths of your cranial cortex to April 26th. It was then that we talked about an upcoming app by developer “Greg”, that allowed you to sync your iPhone/iPod Touch over WiFi. Obviously, a bunch of criticism and shifty eyes followed as such functionality is just so terrible for the App Store.
And as we thought, Greg has come forward today to announce that while Apple did reject his extremely useful app (that adds functionality we’ve only been asking for over the course of many years), it all ends well. Wi-Fi Sync can officially be picked up in Cydia for $9.99 Apple be dammed.
Engadget > Wi-Fi Sync
[Image Source
- February 24, 2010 4:20 am
I’ve seen plenty of articles criticizing Ubisoft’s latest DRM scheme. You know, the one requiring you have to have a constant internet connection where an interruption in your service, if even for a split second, will cancel your current game and fail to save any progress. Ya, it is an epic failure on paper and in practice. How anyone could think this is a good idea is f*cking stupid. Ubisoft has tried defending their position basically saying that from their viewpoint, they believe that the general public loves their idea. Oh yeah, they also tossed in that their “always on” DRM was “Created by gamers for gamers”.
I’ll let you debate that first one amongst yourselves. But there’s another realization that is now also apparent, requiring a new little phrase: Ubisoft DRM is not only a digital finger to the average joe and jane consumer, but to soldiers as well. That’s right, Ubisoft basically hates soldiers.
It’s simple: You are required to have an internet connection at all times — soldiers do not. Making matters worse, an internet connection in a war-torn nation can easily cost a soldier $150/192k. Ya, good luck bringing up anything without your browser choking. Ubisoft is effectively killing off any chance of soldiers actually picking up games employing the new always-on DRM. Let’s be real. Some will counter with “why are soldiers playing video games and not saving the world like they’re supposed to?”. Short sighted. Not only do they have the right (and downright need) some downtime like any normal human, video games are becoming great ways to improve soldiers’ hand eye coordination and prepare for various firefights.
Hey, whatever floats their boat. I’m sure the stigma associated with shunning men and women in uniform will do wonders for sales…
Ubisoft’s new DRM: Bad for gamers, bad for soldiers, bad for America, bad for the planet.
ArsTechnica
Joining the likes of Metalica’s Lars Ulrich and U2 manager Patrick McGuinness, U2 frontman Bono is starting off 2010 showing his incompetence and complete lack of understanding of the music marketplace in the digital age. In an article in the NYT, Bono claims the entire world needs stricter web copyright policies and more policing. This is the exact opposite of what really needs to happen. The real solution is simple — change your decades old business model (which does not work in a digital world/market) and reinvent your sphere of the commercial market.
Sadly, while I did enjoy U2′s music, it just won’t be the same for me anymore. How can I continue to support someone who automatically thinks I’m a criminal, not to mention wants to make my experience with music harder and full of countless more roadblocks, rules, and stipulations?
It could be worse however. I could live in Britain. Over yonder, rules have been set in motion to attach a £25 fee to every broadband bill in the country to help fund a universal web monitoring program that will set out to weed the internet of illegal files. The only hiccup is that a wide range of groups oppose the measure. Groups such as ISP’s, MI5, and intelligent musicians have all spoken out against the monitoring program as a bad idea. So why press on?
The world is run by lobbyists, not the very people who vote to put those in power in their positions. It’s a cold hard truth. They can push stronger policing efforts all they want. At the end of the day, the pirates and those they’re trying to catch will always get away while the rest of the general public suffers.
Stop on by TechDirt at any point and you can find countless articles showing how countries around the world with less emphasis on copyrights and IP law have more innovation. There’s some false belief in the States that more copyrights and copyright laws will somehow make more inventions. Case in point: Google won’t put multi-touch apps on the Android platform themselves for fear of legal attack by Apple’s lawyers. (Why HTC, Palm, and several others do and get away with it remains a mystery). If it is in fact Apple’s lawyers keeping Google from using the feature, their copyright is preventing innovation. Google could come out with a revamped multi-touch experience or use it in a way we’ve never thought of. Unfortunately we’ll have to forever wonder what it would be like.
The most telling example of Bono’s utter lack of intelligence when all things digital are concerned, he cites the movie industry as succeeding in quelling piracy and online file sharing problems. First of all, I can find any movie I want online just as easily as I can music. They (the movie industry) has not solved anything. Second, the movie industry is even more removed from the equation. With even stricter web/digital policies on movies, they are even worse off. Why someone would want to replicate such a poor example of how to run a business and distribute content is beyond me.
It’s quite sad really. The movie industry has gotten to a point where they’re lobbying congress to pass rules to let them disable analog outputs on TV’s for select movies/TV shows under the guise of “reducing piracy” and help them more easily release movies on TV before being made available via normal retail channels. It’s complete BS. It’s an easy way for them to milk our wallets even more. Just imaging if some music labels banned together and tried to disable outputs and other pieces of our audio gear to prevent file sharing/end of the world? It would be a legal shit storm to put it mildly.
It is people like Lars, Bono, and McGuinness who are destroying the music industry and any chance they have to actually making a good impression/fully maximizing potential in the digital age. With every rule, every DRM scheme, every web monitoring plan, they are pushing themselves further and further into irrelevance. These people completely miss the point of the digital age — it is not to steal, but to share and share openly. That is why the internet was invented for. Intelligent music artists whom are breaking away from the traditional music label structure and instead going it alone or at least commanding more control over their works are finding fans and income greatly benefit.
It is the year 2010. You cannot charge $10-$15 for 8-15 digital files that cost absolutely nothing to reproduce, distribute, or “package”. Plain and simple.
Pocket-Lint > NYT
TorrentFreak
- December 17, 2009 8:27 am
**Update: Microsoft pushed out an update for the Zune Twitter app. It’s f****** fucking great. Get it while it’s hot!
Oh joy. Don’t you love it when some company, software developer, or hardware manufacturer decides what is and isn’t suitable for your senses to consume? I know I sure do. Mmmmm censorship and net nannies how I love thee.
/sarcasm
Blatant sarcasm aside, having the Zune team tackle the whole net nanny is rather disappointing. Kids may see vulgar content in live, user generated content. That’s life. Get over it. Censoring the world won’t stop such things from reaching children. They just become annoyances to the rest of civilization and reasons not to buy a particular product. The obvious option would have been to install a password (read: parent controlled) on/off feature that would block/censor vulgar content. An all out *** buffet is stupid. Oh well, maybe ver. 2.0….
Besides the hand holding, the app actually looks pretty good visually speaking though users in various Zune forums are offering up their own two cents. According to them, the app is just “ok” as bugs currently persist. But as is usual with all 1st gen/ver. 1.0 products, bugs are expected. By the time the next version is pushed out I’m sure Microsoft will have gotten around to fixing them.
Any Zune users currently having their socks rocked? Or are your socks more like knee highs reaching towards those sky-thigh-high running shorts? We’ve just gotta know.
Mashable
- September 28, 2009 12:39 pm
If you’re the type that likes to rock out by blaring your music into your little ear canals, you soon could have a nanny watching over your shoulder, or in this case staring back up at you as mp3 players in EU member countries could soon have a default setting of 80 decibels. This type of suggestion and law isn’t knew and has been around in the EU especially for several years. Although, this is the most aggressive push yet buy government to get any actual implementation moving forward. Even though it doesn’t seem that loud, prolonged exposure to sounds over that number can lead to hearing problems — problems that the EU hopes to avoid. It’s worth noting that users of EU nations will be displayed a pop up when going above the 80 decibel limit. So far it isn’t known whether this pop-up will have to be accepted/ignored by the user or if it will disappear after a few seconds. While I understand that users should be given a nice helpful reminder at what point sound output can be dangerous, I also hope that the EU doesn’t mandate a method that is too invasive or annoying. EU readers: are you looking forward to a “helpful reminder” every time you fire up your mp3 player?
Geek > Times Online
Image Source
