Cody Taylor

The MPAA trying to convince the Copyright Office that videotaping a flatscreen is an acceptable alternative to ripping a DVD. Seriously. It’s hard to say if we’ve even seen an organization make a more tone-deaf, flailing argument than this.

judgecorp writes “A new vendor group has promised a Gigabit wireless specification by the end of this year. The Wireless Gigabit (WiGig) spec is apparently 80 percent done and, since it is aimed at high-definition TV, it has to go at more than 3Gbps. There’s around 7GHz of spectrum freely available in the 60GHz band, so it’s technically feasible, and with all the major Wi-Fi silicon vendors on board (as well as Microsoft, Dell, Nokia and others) WiGig looks to have the political muscle too. They should be aware of the Sibeam-led WirelessHD group, though, already in the 60GHz space, and Ultrawideband (UWB) is not dead, as there are actual, real UWB products.”

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Advertisers have finally picked up on what we’ve known all along: nerds are the modern day rock stars.

It needs state permission first, but that’s what a California utility has proposed doing in response to a report citing the overloading of old wooden poles as the cause of a fire that ravaged Malibu. Power would be turned off if winds exceed 35 mph. And they’re calling this brainstorm “pro-active de-energization,” lest anyone get the right idea.