Note Taking 202

Can you imagine yourself in a classroom where students can collaboratively write notes on the same document? It seems like a great idea to me on the educative side of things, and it did work fine for the talk Jason Kottke attended.

I wrote about Hydra before, but that use didn’t occur to me at the time. I was more thinking of Extreme Programming or simultaneous editing of long documents.

I remember when, in secondaire IV, me and two other guys ended up typing our history notes. There was a bit more than 100 pages, single spaced in Times 12… It could have saved us a bunch of time, and give us a better result in the end.

Penologie

On en serait rendu à voir si on ne devrait pas fournir des aiguilles propres aux hackers. Plutôt que de tenter d’éradiquer le mal, l’auteur propose de tenter de réduire les effets du mal, en utilisant des méthodes de programmation plus sécuritaires par exemple.

Give up on the notion that computer security can be improved by putting more people in prison, argues Jon Lasser, SecurityFocus columnist.

[via GrepLaw]

Fixing the analog hole

…You have the right to whatever rights the MPAA grants you. And you’ll be damn happy to have them! That essentially sums up the MPAA’s attitude toward “consumer” rights to listen/watch/copy/balance on their heads the media they purchase, er, license.

dixit Algorythm about a post on Cruelty to analog by Cory about a meeting of the Analog Reconversion Discussion Group .

According to his post, it seems the Analog Rights Management could be fairly blunt:

In an effort to address this inevitable « equivalence gap, » Hunt’s presentation set out the minimum set of « states » that the MPAA demands in any analog signaling (read: watermarking) system. They are:

1. Copy Never [and no redistribution]

2. Copy once (similar to the SCMS system used in DAT) [and no redistribution]

3. Copy no more (the condition of a second-generation « Copy once » copy) [and no redistribution]

4. Copy freely, but no redistribution [redistribution controlled by encryption]

5. Copy and redistribute freely (could be implemented either by absence of a signal, or by specific « copy freely » signal)

The view from the BBC

I appreciate that the BBC has a few RSS feeds, that their news archives are available, and of course, that the quality of their content is excellent.

Dave Winer has an interview with the Head of Technical Development at BBC News Interactive that shows what’s in store for them on the internet side of things in the near future. The plan looks fairly reasonable (plus, he mentions Lessig) and I wonder if our own state-owned TV couldn’t do similar things.

[via Furdlog]

Sony chooses it’s side

I was writing about Sony having divergent interests in it’s music and electronics businesses.

It looks as though the electronics side is not loosing sleep over the MPAA’s lobby.

Take a look at this sweet PVR, the NDR-XR1 : a 80 GB hard disc and a DVD burner. Neither Tivo or SONICBlue ever dared to ship something like that.

Yes, I do realize that I am amazed by the implications of something that is no more than a VCR that you can use with more than one tape. Talk about lowered expectations… Thanks DMCA…

[via Gizmodo]

CDMA to be forced on Iraq

I’m trying not to blog about the war, which makes it hard to find worthy tech stories. This bill however, that aims to force CDMA over Iraq (instead of GSM, which everybody else uses around there (and which is also prefered in the UK)) just takes the palm.

A coalition is underfoot in the U.S. Congress to replace European with American cell phone technology in Iraq as soon as the conflict is over and the country rebuilds.

In a very kind act of colonialist benevolence, the US want to better the economic situation of local companies (Qualcomm) at what is, arguably, the detriment of Iraq. Not because CDMA is technically inferior, but because the motifs are essentially economic and it is probably just a taste of things to come: Iraq as a brand new exclusive market for American companies.

[via Slashdot]

Sony c. Sony

Furdlog on a post by Mark Mulligan at Jupiter Research on the diverging interests of Sony Music and Sony Electronics.

The conclusion:

Or, it may mean that Sony will be the first to solve the puzzle and break the assumption in the opening paragraph of this quote – that supporting full technical capability in consumer electronics devices need not mean destruction of the music business – just the current music business model.

And while you’re visiting Furdlog, check out this link for the tale of a mp3 witch hunt the old fashioned way.

GMPCS

Les téléphones satellites font jaser d’eux ces jours-ci. La dernière fois que j’avais entendu parler d’Iridium c’était à propos de spéculation sur le spectacle d’étoiles filantes que leurs oiseaux promettaient de nous offrir en se faisant désorbiter.

Apparament je suis en retard dans les nouvelles: Globalstar et Iridium sont toujours en affaires. Les prix ne sont plus absolument exorbitants (juste un peu) et les téléphones sont presque jolis, selon le petit article de MobileTracker.

Les accros(e) peuvent visiter le bien nommé Satellites-Phones.org

[via Gizmodo]

[MàJ: oui, évidemment je me suis mélangé dans les acronymes. Je voulais dire GMPCS (Global Mobile Personal Communications Systems) et pas GPRS (General Packet Radio Service, un standard de téléphonie cellulaire). J’ai corrigé le titre, ce qui brise les permaliens. Tant pis.]

Microsoft dans le rôle du gentil

Je suis scandalisé que les webcams pour Star Académie soient pour les abonnés de Vidéotron seulement. Je trouve incohérent qu’un ISP rattache un service à son entreprise de connectivité de cette façon.

Enfin, on dirait que Microsoft aurait réalisé que

 » In its broadband efforts, Microsoft has done better so far with telecommunications companies than cable television operators. The cable companies, notably AOL Time Warner, have resisted Microsoft as a potential competitor, while the telecommunications carriers, lagging in the broadband access market, see Microsoft more as a partner. »

Kevin Werbach est le premier à louer le geste de Microsoft se positionner MSN comme un service et non pas comme un ISP à valeur ajoutée à la AOL . Il se peut évidemment que des soucis au niveau du droit de la concurrence motivent ce changement de politique, mais ça ne m’empêchera pas d’applaudir le geste.

Les plans de créer de la compétition (ou en fait la limiter, compte tenu des monopoles de fait des fournisseurs de service de câble) en rattachant des services de valeur ajoutée au services ne me semblent pas souhaitable, du moins tant que les fournisseurs d’accès voudrons prétendre au statut de « common carrier ».

L’internet n’est pas Videoway. Microsoft semble vouloir se concentrer sur un secteur en particulier, celui des services. On dirait que quelqu’un a compris le message de A World of Ends.

Je pense qu’il est important de conserver en tête une certaine vision de ce qu’on veut voir l’Internet devenir. L’accès universel en téléphonie (pouvoir rejoindre n’importe qui de n’importe où) est aujourd’hui pris pour acquis, mais il n’a pas toujours été de même. Il semble qu’il soit nécessaire de travailler pour conserver cette connectivité qui est venue d’elle-même à l’Internet.

[MàJ: Tiens donc: Lessig vient de dénicher un article sur le même sujet]

P2P to influence radio playlists

Ars Technica Newsdesk:

« ClearChannel, the darling of the radio world (heh), is doing something novel: the company is launching program that will take data from monitored P2P networks, and report to radio stations on what songs are hot. The idea is that this information can aide in creating more successful, responsive programming by keeping a rather direct finger on the pulse of the ‘net. »

BigChampagne, the monitoring compagny has a BandBattle page where you can plot the sharing-and-searching status of your favorite artists. The compagny seems to have a fairly pragmatical take on p2p. Worth a read.

Consumer vs Customer

Dan Gilmour suppute qu’il y a une signification à accorder à la nuance entre customer et consumer.

Je croyais que mon incompréhension de nuance venait d’une mauvaise connaissance de l’anglais: j’y vois la différence entre client et consommateur (mais client m’apparaît comme étant lié au secteur des services). Ceci dit, au delà de la dimension politiquement correcte, est-ce que ca fait progresser un débat?

Comme Derek@Copyfight partage mon scepticisme, je serais, en plus des questions qu’il pose, curieux de savoir si un tel débat lexical existe en français.