The March of Technology

[TheMightyEthan]

I could see utility companies being allowed to deactivate power only for certain things, but I also don't think that's really a bad thing. As it is now they can't turn your power off in the winter because then you would freeze to death, but if there's a way for them to turn power off except for your heater then whatever.

[fuchikoma]

Just as Ethan says - it doesn't seem like such a bad thing. People could practically accept it now for its convenience. But in time, if the infrastructure is there for such control, how can they not use it for other things? It's the kind of scope creep that led to putting rootkits on audio CDs (which isn't as much a Sony thing as many say, but regardless someone tried it.) "If you can listen to CDs on computers and computers can do anything you tell them to, how could we not tell them to not copy CDs?" Well, if you can selectively remote control which devices get power, then how can you justify letting people keep using it if they haven't paid some bill or another? Not paying the TV tax? I guess you don't use the TV then - *snip*.

 

I could also be less optimistic since where I live, people will occasionally freeze to death at home and few enough companies to count on one hand control cellular, landline, television and Internet networks and are able to freely collude to charge some of the highest rates in the world for mediocre service and still become the most profitable companies in the whole country while foreign competitors are locked out or hobbled. All it'd take for something like this to be abused here is a nod from one of the regulatory board members who used to work for big industry and they could flout any consumer protection rules they like.

 

But... I've made my point so I'll leave it at that. I know it sounds ridiculous, but so do a huge number of backward leaps for consumers I've seen in the last decade. I hope the optimists are right on this one! There is also, after all, a decent chance that this will never leave the lab anyway, as with most new tech ideas.

[Thursday Next]

You seem to be arguing against your point. If the electricity companies will already cut off an entire house thus causing people to freeze to death, then surely it's better that they only cut off the non-essentials?

 

Of course, this all presumes a certain level of external visibility that was not mentioned in the video, but if you bought a TV on hire purchase or rented it or whatever, and stopped paying for it, why shouldn't the owner of the TV have a kill-switch? Again, it's got to be a better alternative than having some heavies kick down your door and walk away with it and some other stuff to cover what you owe.

 

It all seems a bit tin-foil hatted to me to worry about stuff like this. There are a lot of good applications for this technology, not everything in SONY's R&D labs is a form of DRM.

[fuchikoma]

That's not really arguing against my point - you pretty much never find something that is purely good or purely evil. I'm just saying that something like this can be abused, and the way things have gone in industries like software and telecom, that's not as unlikely as it seems.

 

I'm not talking about getting a cheap rental TV or something instead of widely available fully owned models. I'm talking about the former becoming the new standard, so avoiding it would be like trying to buy a cell phone without a camera, a game console with a homebrew programming kit built in, or a AAA video game that you really do completely own when you pay for it.

 

I agree it sounds like a foil hat conspiracy theory - but like I've said, so did the idea of having to pay for a ringtone or wallpaper for a device, the idea that a single player game would ever require an Internet connection just to start, needing to pay money for the secondary costumes in a fighting game and other overzealous DLC, etc. These things have forced me to reconsider what is possible or likely and the speed at which consumer rights can be waylaid without much resistance to speak of.

 

[edit: I wouldn't even assume it's DRM because it's Sony - they've been pretty permissive next to the other companies and the one major instance people tend to remember was a turnkey third-party solution bought by a company that was only half Sony to begin with. They're probably not planning much of anything sinister at this point, but when there's an opportunity to gain ground from consumers, someone always seems to be there to take it.]

Edited March 19, 2012 by fuchikoma

[Thursday Next]

Since when do you have to pay for a ringtone?

[TheMightyEthan]

Plenty of places sell ringtones, but most newer phones also let you use any MP3 you want as a ringtone.

[fuchikoma]

About as long as they've existed, actually. Late 1990s, I'd guess.

 

My Motorola StarTAC couldn't do tones. A few early phones allowed you to input the ringtones manually into an editor.

On my Nokia 5165, the only publicized way to set a custom ringtone was to order one and have it texted to me, though I found a loophole to download them online and send them by reencoding them with a third party app, encoding them as a special SMS message, packetize them into messages of a certain size, then intercept the messages and copy and paste the pieces into a webpage form that let me send text messages to myself.

My Nokia 3220 also typically depended on ordering ringtones for cash, though I was able to load custom MIDI onto it with a $20 knockoff of a $70 adapter cable that most people wouldn't even know about.

My Moto KRZR K1 connected to a PC with a USB cable! ...but the only way to get custom tones onto it without buying them was to load special phone hacking software, specially prepare the ringtone files, and replace the ones that were "baked in" - resulting in randomly-named custom tones.

 

Actually, my iPhone 3GS is the first phone I've ever owned that has a legitimate method for loading user-made tones without esoteric adapter cables and hacks.

Edited March 19, 2012 by fuchikoma

[TheMightyEthan]

My RAZR would use mp3's as ringtones, but the LG phone I had after that wouldn't, but my HTC Incredible 2 does. Every smartphone I've seen will let you use mp3's (though I'm sure there are at least a couple that won't).

[deanb]

So first off:

http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/news-room/2012/03/%E2%80%9Cpersonalized-immune%E2%80%9D-mouse-offers-new-tool-for-studying-autoimmune-diseases/ - full press release

http://www.gizmag.com/personalized-immune-mouse-model/21860/ - Gizmag write up

 

Customisable mice to match your immune system. Which I guess is a decent stop gap before we just make a clone at birth and use that to test shit on. It's main aim is for auto-immune issues so I've a feeling it'll be while before it's a more standard thing.

 

Up second

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17183890

Woman wants to have her hand amputated and replaced with a bionic limb. Her hand is fucked mind, but most of the time when you put on a prosthetic it's cos the limb was amputated already. Could be interesting if this becomes more common. As bionics improve we are going to head to a more DXHR-like world where folks will replace even healthy limbs with improved bionics.

[deanb]

This is pretty much what has been going through my mind now 3-D is becoming a thing and OLEDs have been around. Obviously still early days but I could see this becoming a thing.

[TheMightyEthan]

Head-tracking 3D is cool, but in person that wouldn't be quite as impressive as the video makes it seem because without a separate picture going to each eye your brain would still see a 2D image whenever you were holding still, it would only be when you moved your head that you would get the 3D effect.

 

This is why I came here:

 

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/120583-new-speech-jamming-gun-hints-at-dystopian-big-brother-future

 

Apparently the Japanese have made a sound gun that renders your brain incapable of speech while it's activated.

[Thursday Next]

Apparently the Japanese have made a sound gun that renders your brain incapable of speech while it's activated.

 

Does it play Rebecca Black's album? Zing!/Rimshot/Whatever.

[TheMightyEthan]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/03/male-birth-control-reversible_n_1400708.html

 

w00t! Male birth control shot. 100% effective, works for 10 years, easily reversible.

[madbassman39]

That is both awesome and scary. I know they said they've been testing it for years and it seems to have almost no side effects, but I don't know if I would trust it just yet. I don't trust those Y shaped things they put in a woman's cervix, they terrify me... especially when a side effect is they can penetrate the walls and need surgical removal!!!! No way Jose.

[TheMightyEthan]

Oh yeah, I definitely wouldn't be signing up for a clinical trial of a penis injection, though I do hope it pans out.

[deanb]

I'd take it. Can't be trusting those tricksy womens on taking their birth control.

[TheMightyEthan]

Not to mention one of the side effects of the pill is reduced sex drive. Not taking the pill makes them hornier.

[deanb]

http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/4/2925237/googles-project-glass-augmented-reality-glasses-begin-testing

 

The GPS maps bit is the only par I might like. The talking to myself not what something I'd be fine with. Nor having things pop up in my vision.

 

Reminds me of an old college project I had going back when the phone everyone wanted was a Moto Razr n AR was just starting out. (I ended up with something else instead, it was a bit ambitious for myself back then)

[deanb]

http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/self-sustaining-solar-reactor-creates-clean-hydrogen-fuel-2012044/

 

So some guys have a reactor that uses solar power(not panels) and zinc to make hydrogen from water. It's going testing on a prototype before potential commercial full scale use.

 

Main issue is getting zinc, but I know of one pretty sizeable source...

[TheMightyEthan]

lol, it would crack me up to see the federal government make a profit by buying back all the pennies at face value, melting them down, and selling the zinc for more than the money was worth.

 

*Edit* - Obligatory "This thing isn't worth the gold it's made of!"

Edited April 5, 2012 by TheMightyEthan

[fuchikoma]

Since 2000 they've been virtually all steel here... but apparently that wasn't cheap enough because it was just announced they would be phased out of use. Actually looked it up the other day after accidentally picking up a few with a magnet.

 

That reactor must be super efficient or something because you can split hydrogen off water with a power source and any electrode - say, platinum.

[Thursday Next]

accidentally picking up a few with a magnet.

 

I'm often found wandering about accidentally picking up things with magnets...

[fuchikoma]

Haha... I was having a conversation about our dollar coins and I mentioned they were made of nickel, but wasn't sure if nickels still were (not anymore...) So I dipped a powerful magnet into a handful of change and a couple of the dozen or so pennies stuck to it too.

[deanb]

http://bldgblog.blog...tar-garden.html

 

Laying the groundwork at ITER. Shiny shiny fusion power.

 

 

 

The power of the sun in the palm of my hand.

 

In other news Mainland Europe is building a pretty hefty collection of potential doomsday weapons of late.

 

(They're making one of these types

)

[deanb]

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/04/24/breaking-private-company-does-indeed-plan-to-mine-asteroids-and-i-think-they-can-do-it/

 

Company to start mining asteroids. Can probably do it.