Yesterday several entertainment industry insiders explained how piracy was responsible for the downfall of their industries. Today, Kristoffer Schollin from Gothenburg University explains that BitTorrent is not evil, while media professor Roger Wallace informs the court that the file-sharing is actually beneficial to the entertainment industry.
CNETNate writes “More details about Sony’s new Blu-spec CD format — standard CDs authored using Blu-ray’s blue diode technology — are beginning to emerge, with commercial releases beginning to hit Amazon. Blu-spec CDs are compatible with existing CD players but have been mastered with higher levels of accuracy by using the same technology used to author Blu-ray discs, with the intention of eliminating reading errors that occur as a result of being authored with traditional red laser technology. Sony has also launched an official (Japanese) site for Blu-spec CDs.”
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dazza101 writes “For the first time ever, we have witnessed a solar eclipse from the moon. On 10 February 2009 Japan’s Kaguya lunar orbiter captured the sight of the Earth eclipsing the sun. The spacecraft also recorded this video showing the Earth surrounded by a glowing ring and briefly forming the classic diamond ring that often occurs during a solar eclipse, as seen from down here on Earth.”
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waderoush writes “Critics are eating up everything about Amazon’s Kindle 2 e-book reader except its 9 price tag. But if you think that’s expensive, take a look behind the Kindle at E Ink, the Cambridge, MA, company that has spent 0 million since 1997 developing the electronic paper display that is the Kindle’s coolest feature. In the company’s first interview since the Kindle 2 came out, E Ink CEO Russ Wilcox says it took far longer than expected to make the microcapsule-based e-paper film not only legible, but durable and manufacturable. Now that the Kindle 2 is finally getting readers to take e-books seriously, however, Wilcox says he sees a profitable future in which many book, magazine, and newspaper publishers will turn to e-paper, if only to save money on printing and delivery. (Silicon Alley Insider recently calculated that the New York Times could save more than 0 million a year by shutting down its presses and buying every subscriber a Kindle). ‘What we’ve got here is a technology that could be saving the world billion a year,’ Wilcox says.”
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oldspewey writes “A new skin disorder caused by use of games consoles has been identified by skin specialists. The condition, dubbed “PlayStation palmar hidradenitis”, is described in the British Journal of Dermatology. Researchers outline the case of a 12-year-old girl who attended a Swiss hospital with intensely painful sores on the palms of her hands. The girl, who had been using a games console regularly, recovered fully after 10 days of abstinence. The doctors suspect that the problem was caused by tight and continuous grasping of the console’s hand-grips, and repeated pushing of the buttons, alongside sweating caused by the tension of the game. Nina Goad, of the British Association of Dermatologists said: ‘This is an interesting discovery and one that the researchers are keen to share … If you’re worried about soreness on your hands when playing a games console, it might be sensible to give your hands a break from time to time, and don’t play excessively if your hands are prone to sweating.'” We called it Tekken thumb.
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nandemoari writes “Windows 7 beta testers are disputing whether or not Microsoft’s is taking notice of their feedback. The dispute follows a blog post by Steven Sinofsky, the man in charge of engineering Windows 7. He notes that in one week in January Microsoft received data through Windows 7’s automatic feedback system every 15 seconds. According to Sinofsky, it’s impossible to keep everyone happy. That’s partly because there are only so many changes Microsoft can make to the system and still finish it, and partly because in many cases testers often have opposing views about a feature.”
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nandemoari writes “On Tuesday, Apple shareholders gathered at Apple’s Cupertino corporate campus continued their pursuit of details regarding Apple chief Steve Jobs’ health. They didn’t get a whole heck of a lot of information out of Apple’s executives, but they did receive some encouraging news on Jobs’ status. Timothy Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer, assured shareholders that Jobs still planned to return to the company in June. Jobs obviously wasn’t present at the meeting, which might have made it rather uncomfortable when several stockholders stood to sing ‘Happy Birthday.’ Jobs’ 54th passed on Tuesday.”
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gubm writes “Google said it wants to help the European Commission prove its antitrust charges against Microsoft regarding the bundling of the Internet Explorer browser with Windows.”
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svonkie writes “Despite launching on the T-Mobile G1 with little mainstream fanfare, Google Inc.’s Android OS appears to have gained strong interest in the open source development community. According to a survey of Black Duck Software’s Knowledge Base, Apple Inc.’s iPhone led the industry with 266 open source project releases during 2008, while Android followed in second place with 191 releases. Black Duck compiled the data after scouring through over 185,000 of open source projects across 4,000 Internet sites.”
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KentuckyFC writes “Last year, a group of Iranian physicists made a puzzling discovery. They placed a thin film of water in a small cell and bathed it in two perpendicular electric fields. To their surprise this caused the water to rotate. They called their device a liquid film motor and posted on the web a cool set of movies showing the phenomenon. The puzzle is this: the electric fields are static, so what’s driving the motor? Now another group of physicists has the answer: a complex interaction between the electric field, the cell container and the liquid causes water to move along the cell wall. Crucially, it moves in opposite directions on opposite sides of the cell and so sets up a circular flow. The phenomenon works only when friction and surface tension are significant forces so the effect is entirely scale dependent. That’s probably why we haven’t seen it before and also why it could have important implications for microfluidic devices such as lab-on-a-chip.”
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