Technobriefs
November 11, 2007
Robots with street cred: an idiosyncratic selection of articles on the recent DARPA Urban Challenge competition for autonomous vehicles: CMU wins $2 million in urban robot race, Crashes and Traffic Jams in Military Test of Robotic Vehicles, Viva La Robotic Revolution!, bigger picture: DARPA race pushes robotics forward, written as a future history: Traveling back in time to witness the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge.
Google and cell phones: instead of the long-rumored Gphone, Google announces something potentially even more disruptive and transformational: an open software platform for advanced services on various phones via the new Open Handset Alliance. Read all about it: Google Enters the Wireless World, Google unveils cell phone software and alliance, Google pushes into mobile phones and Gphone vs. iPhone: The security debate begins.
Online music and copyright: the RIAA's fool hearty plan to sue it customers into loyalty is predictably running into problems U. of Oregon Says No to RIAA and a judge tells RIAA "no details, no judgment": RIAA denied default judgment as judge cites doubt over positive ID. Boing Boing on The Week on the fall of the music industry. We should not heap all our scorn on the RIAA, sometime the artists want to make their own stupid moves: Prince threatens to sue his fans over online images. Gigi Sohn's address to the New Media and the Marketplace of Ideas Conference: Six Steps to Digital Copyright Sanity: Reforming a Pre-VCR Law for a YouTube World. If 60% of downloaders choose to pay nothing for Radiohead's new album, why is the band still smiling? 38% of Downloaders Paid For Radiohead Album and Study: Radiohead Promotes Music with Free Music.
Technobits: Consumer Groups Ask F.C.C. to Halt Comcast’s File-Sharing Delays --- World's First Nanoradio Could Lead to Subcellular Remote-Control Interfaces --- The Charge of the Ultra-Capacitors --- A reality check on dreams for space: the repairs --- Giggling robot becomes one of the kids --- Benefits Of Online Interaction For Teens Outweigh Danger --- Low-cost laptop production started --- Wind-up lights for African homes ("The technology behind the wind-up radio could soon be helping to light up some of the poorest homes in Africa") --- Energetic Cosmic Rays May Start From Black Holes --- A Planetary System That Looks Familiar.