“Going Galt” On Tobacco Taxes With E-Cigarettes

I’m not the only one, Ace of Spades HQ says:

“Going Galt” On S-CHIP [Komrad Vinnieovich]?
Thanks to President Barack Hussein Oteleprompter’s promise to not raise taxes on any family making under $250,000 a year (or $200,000 as an individual), some friends and I have decided that it’s a good time to quit using tobacco products. [...]

LG DVD Drive: 8X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 4X DVD+R DL 8X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-ROM 16X CD-R 16X CD-RW 32X CD-ROM CD, DVD: 2MB BD, HD: 4MB Cache SATA Super Multi Blue BD Burner and HD DVD Reader

Really! Thats the name of the LG Model GGW-H10NI DVD Burner.

What an absolute joke. Not the LG Product, (it’s a nice drive although a little pricey) but this whole Optical Media standards war that has been ongoing for the last ten years or so.
Which technology can use this alphabet soup idiocy to actually win [...]

Reviving Old PC800 RDRAM PCs

I recently came across an old Gateway Performance 1400 that needed fixing. Generally a PC this old is to be considered “Scrap” and usually I advise the client that it’s time for the dreaded replacement. Then comes the painful process of moving of data, apps, and all of the other nightmarish stuff that comes to [...]

A Nanomechanical Computer

In an article from The Institute of Psysics:

A nanomechanical computer—exploring new avenues of computing

Here is the abstract:
We propose a fully mechanical computer based on nano-electromechanical elements. Our aim is to combine this classical approach with modern nanotechnology to build a nanomechanical computer (NMC) based on nanomechanical transistors. The main motivation behind constructing such a computer [...]

iPhone Magic

Via: The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs

iPhone Dissected: They did it, so you don’t have to

From anandtech:
We have only had the phone for a few hours but we needed to get inside its casing, what follows is our dissection of the Apple iPhone. Please note that we’re doing this so you are not tempted to on your recent $500/$600 expenditure, while it is quite possible to take apart using easy [...]

Finnish court rules CSS protection used in DVDs “ineffective”

Via Oikeuden edessä and slashdot:

Finnish court rules CSS protection used in DVDs “ineffective”
In an unanimous decision released today, Helsinki District Court ruled that Content Scrambling System (CSS) used in DVD movies is “ineffective”. The decision is the first in Europe to interpret new copyright law amendments that ban the circumvention of “effective technological measures”. [...]

09 f9: A Legal Primer … or … What is the AACS-LA’s Legal argument?

The AACS-LA made some news yesterday. Read about some of it here, here, and here, as well as the following from the EFF Deep Links section:
What is the AACS-LA’s argument? In its takedown letters, the AACS-LA claims that hosting the key violates the DMCA’s ban on trafficking in circumvention devices. The DMCA provides that:
No person [...]

Professor Lawrence “RW” Lessig’s “The Withering of the Net”

Professor Lawrence “RW” Lessig’s “The Withering of the Net”

On June 16, 2006, Professor Lawrence Lessig gave a talk at the Center for American Progress entitled “The Withering of the Net: How DC Pathologies are Undermining the Growth and Wealth of the Net.” This talk was the second in a series of three. The first talk [...]

Exposed: HD DVD and Blu-ray Processiong Keys for All HD Titles

I was following this discussion on Doom9 yesterday, where arnezami claims to have found the “processing key” used to decrypt the DRM on all HD DVD and Blu-Ray Disc films.
It looks like this is the real McCoy and the news is starting to get around…
arnezami claims to have found it by simply watching his [...]

Quantum Computing Demo Announced

Quantum Computing Demo Announcement

We have fixed the dates for the demo of our Orion quantum computing system. We are going to hold two events, one at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California on February 13th, and the second at the Telus World of Science in Vancouver, Canada on February 15th.
These events are open [...]

Seething the Light

Nuke is having fun at the hardware store.

Nike, Burger King , and now Feit Electric?

While perusing the website of recent commenter, Jon, my keen blogger’s instinct recoiled in horror, as I discovered a photograph of the GE Feit Electric flourescent light bulb which … wait for it … contains similarities to the arabic spelling of [...]

RIAA Lawsuits: Boy Bites Dog

New York teen sues record industry

A New York teen, dubbed a pirate by the Record Industry, is counter suing them for defamation, violating anti-trust laws, conspiring to defraud the courts and making extortionate threats.

Robert Santangelo, who was 11 when he is supposed to have downloaded music, has come out fighting. He denies sharing music using [...]

Canada Responsible for 50% of Movie Piracy

50% movie piracy from Canada: Hollywood
As much as 50 per cent of the world’s pirated movies come from Canada, prompting the film industry to threaten to delay the release of new titles in this country.
According to an investigation by Twentieth Century Fox, most of the illegal recording, or “camcording,” is taking place in Montreal movie [...]

Wii hacked to play backups

Already! Here is a link to the Inquirer article…
If this isn’t a fake I will keep posting updates here, instead of a bunch of separate posts. (Not a fake Wiinja ModChip is now available).
UPDATE:
WiinJa ModChip website
USA Preorder here
Details:
Wiinja Drivechip Mod
$55.00
Features:
Non Swap / Direct Boot
Boots Own Region WII Backups Directly
Boots Own Region WII Backups [...]

AACS Confirms HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Cracked

AACS hack blamed on bad player implementation

A month after the first signs appeared online that AACS—the content protection scheme shared by HD DVD and Blu-ray—had been circumvented, the AACS Licensing Authority has verified the hack. According to a statement from the AACS LA, AACS has not been seriously compromised. Instead, the statement said, the attack [...]

Blu-Ray DRM Cracked

Blu-Ray DRM Cracked
The plaintext exploit used to partially crack HD-DVD a couple of weeks ago was brought to bear on Blu-Ray by the same gents this weekend—and it worked a treat.
“We need to kick DRM in the butt!” declares the sigfile of Doom9 forum poster Janvitos, launching his inspection of the format.
Doom9 forum [...]

Microsoft Confirms DRM Driver Crippling in VISTA

I got some feedback from some DRM doubters at the beginning of the year when I talked about The Perils of Windows Vista and Built-in DRM. I wish that I was wrong, but no such luck. From the horses mouth comes confirmation of every horrible charge leveled at Vista by Gutmann

Windows Vista Content Protection – [...]

Video: Digital Waterfalls

This is really a cool display.

Hattip: BoingBoing

Build your own self-tuning portable RF jammer

Not that you would … because the FCC frowns on that sort of thing … but it’s nice to know that you could.

Wave Bubble: A design for a self-tuning portable RF jammer

This website details the design and construction Wave Bubble: a self-tuning, wide-bandwidth portable RF jammer. The device is lightweight and small for easy camoflauging: [...]

“Think Big” How would you fix Xbox live?

1up has some interesting news regarding XBox Live…

How Would You Fix XBL?
Microsoft soliciting ideas, feedback for future updates.

You don’t often hear corporations asking their consumers for suggestions, but Microsoft’s done it once before with Xbox Live and they’re doing it again. Andre Vrignaud of the Xbox Live Platform Strategy team is asking Xbox users to [...]

High Def DVD Alphabet Soup (Dual Formats) Announced

This took a little longer than expected, but in less than a year, here we are … High Definition DVD alphabet soup for optical hardware, with an added bonus of dual format High Def optical media!

Warner, LG embrace dual-format DVD technology

An electronics company and a movie studio independently rolled out plans on [...]

Microsoft’s Zune Advertising Is Really Strange

This is a good example of what I like to refer to as “WTF??? Marketing”

Direct Brain Control of a Humanoid Robot

Researchers demonstrate direct brain control of humanoid robot

A classic science-fiction scene shows a person wearing a metal skullcap with electrodes sticking out to detect the person’s thoughts. Another sci-fi movie standard depicts robots doing humans’ bidding. Now the two are combined, and in real life: University of Washington researchers can control the movement of a [...]

HD-DVD copy protection defeated … for now

BoingBoing reader Gunther says,
On the doom9 forums there is news of a new tool to decrypt HDDVD’s. How you get the key is not yet clear but there is a promise to have a tool to get the needed key later. (check the #9 post in the thread): Link, and related coverage at the [...]

Nanomaterials Produce Flexible Three – Dimensional Electronics

Nanomaterials Produce Heterogeneous Three- Dimensional Electronics

Researchers at the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory of the University of Illinois have developed a new, experimentally simple approach for combining broad classes of dissimilar electronic materials into heterogeneously integrated systems with two or three dimensional layouts on rigid or flexible substrates. The materials and techniques, published in the [...]