Posts belonging to Category Technology



Sue Happy

Allow me to call your attention to MELISSA S. CONNELLY and LAURENCE B. STANTON, who intitiated a lawsuit against Palm and a number of computer manufacturers, alleging that a number of Palm organizers could collect Electro Static Discharge (ESD) which damaged the serial ports of computers without sufficient protection.  As the owner of a Palm Vx I just received notice of a settlement in the class action case. 

I can understand someone being frustrated when static electricity kills one of their electronic devices.  However, it should be common knowledge that electronic devices are sensitive to static discharge.  Further, that sensitive devices are subject to destruction by a large enough static discharge.  I’ve been zapped a number of times when taking my Palm out of its cradle.  So far, it hasn’t hurt the computer or the Palm itself.  But if it had, I wouldn’t sue over it.  I just accept that this is one of the prices we pay for the convenience of these electronic devices.  I’ve even taken personal responsibility (what a concept!) for the health of my electronic devices by purchasing and using a humidifier.  Maintaining sufficient humidity levels will prevent static discharge.  (Not to mention dry skin…)

Now, there are computer systems that wouldn’t be fried by the same discharge as the ones alleged to be problematic in the complaint.  But just because some computer makers provide greater static protection doesn’t seem to me to justify suing the manufacturer.  A lot of these PCs are the lower-end ones, where it can be expected that you won’t get all the features of a top-of-the-line system.  There are tradeoffs in every product design decision.  It’s probably possible to design a system that could withstand any static discharge that would be expected in a home environment.  But what would the price be for such a system?  Would it be possible to include such features on that $299 PC that people clamor for?

While the plantiffs may get some kind of payment out of this, the only winners I see are the lawyers, who usually end up with substantial payments for their troubles.  Ultimately, all of the rest of us will pay for this in higher prices for PCs and Palm PDAs.

Jenny, Jenny, Who Can I Turn To?

Cellular number portability has opened up a market for interesting and memorable numbers.  An enterprising New Yorker is auctioning off 212-867-5309 on eBay.  The bidding was up to $55,387.81 at the time of this posting.

For those who missed the significance of that number, see here.

This Means War

Ever been in a movie theater or a restaurant and had to endure the loud, obnoxious prick with a cell phone who was regaling all in earshot with his or her conversation?  Despite it being illegal in the United States, some people are taking action.

A cafe customer fed up with cell phone chatter sits in a bubble of blissful silence as nearby patrons puzzle over dead handsets.

A man tries to take a secret snapshot with his camera phone, but gets only a blank screen.

A priest imbues his church with a new energy—the electromagnetic kind—to keep his sermons serene and free from beeps, chirps and rockin’ ring tones.

These are glimpses at a war of gadgets quietly playing out around the world.

As millions embrace the freedoms of mobile communications, some people and companies are pushing back against the tide. They are fighting technology with technology, using detectors, jammers and other gizmos to defend privacy, security and sometimes sanity.

However, for those worried about the legal ramifications of using a jammer, there may be hope in the near future.  A researcher at Iwata University in Morioka, Japan has come up with something called “magnetic wood”, which can passively block cell signals in rooms which have been lined with it.

Stopping Hail

This is a pretty cool idea.

Nissan demonstrated its new device designed to protect its parking lot from a hailstorm for WLBT News on Tuesday.  It is a cannon that sends sonic waves up to 50,000 feet in the air to keep hailstones from forming.

I’d never known that there were devices that could prevent hail.  But according to the linked article, there are 400 of these devices around the world.  Nissan doesn’t yet know if it will be effective for them, but if it is it would save them millions in damages to their inventory.

Vinegar Vs Honey

I haven’t been paying much attention to nanotech.  Given the rather perplexing and intemperate response of their media flak to Prof. Reynolds’ writings on the subject, though, I think I may have to start paying more attention.  When an industry tries so hard to marginalize an entire group of people as kooks because of their speculations concerning future possibilities it makes me wonder what they’re trying to hide.  It’s kind of reminiscent of some of the early attempts from the RFID industry to try to marginalize privacy advocates.

I guess I need to start by finding out more about molecular assemblers and why this Modzelewski fellow is so afraid of them.

Update:  To get started I ordered a couple of books from Amazon.com, although those are just basic primers.  Some of the more detailed books are a bit more expensive, including the ones by Eric Drexler.  It turns out that the Keller library is part of the Ft. Worth system and I was able to put a hold on a copy of one of his books.  They’ll notify me when it comes in at the local branch. 

This whole NanoBusiness Alliance business really has gotten me interested to see what’s really going on.

It’s A War

Despite being scum,  spammers are some clever bastards.

Someone told me about an ingenious way that spammers were cracking “captchas”—the distorted graphic words that a human being has to key into a box before Yahoo and Hotmail and similar services will give her a free email account. The idea is to require a human being and so prevent spammers from automatically generating millions of free email accounts.

The ingenious crack is to offer a free porn site which requires that you key in the solution to a captcha—which has been inlined from Yahoo or Hotmail—before you can gain access. Free porn sites attract lots of users around the clock, and the spammers were able to generate captcha solutions fast enough to create as many throw-away email accounts as they wanted.

The link to Boing Boing is from Slashdot, where I found this in the comments.

They’ve harnessed the power of horniness, but for evil. If only that unlimited power could be harnessed for good—it would be like having controlable fusion and all of the heavy water we’d ever need.

Amazingly clever, those evil spamming bastards.

To borrow a phrase, “Heh.”

As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Be Warned

A company in Denmark is developing a flower that changes color when planted near a landmine.  They have genetically encoded the plant to react to nitrogen-dioxide (which is emitted by the explosives in the landmine) by turning red. 

When I first saw this I immediately wondered just how they would sow the seeds, but the article mentions either clearing a path using conventional methods or using a plane. 

Link via Slashdot.

Shake Rattle and Roll

If it pans out, this could be a fairly significant advance in earthquake prediction.

In June of 2003, this team predicted an earthquake of magnitude 6.4 or higher would strike within nine months in a 310-mile region of Central California whose southern part includes San Simeon, where a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck on Dec. 22.

In July of 2003, the team predicted an earthquake in Japan of magnitude 7 or higher by Dec. 28, 2003, in a region that includes Hokkaido. A magnitude 8.1 earthquake struck Hokkaido on Sept. 25, 2003.

Previously, the team made “intermediate-term” predictions, years in advance. The 1994 Northridge earthquake struck 21 days after an 18-month period when the team predicted that an earthquake of magnitude 6.6 or more would strike within 120 miles from the epicenter of the 1992 Landers earthquake — an area that includes Northridge. The magnitude 6.8 Northridge earthquake caused some $30 billion in damage. The 1989 magnitude 7.1 Loma Prieta earthquake fulfilled a five-year forecast the team issued in 1986.

Keilis-Borok’s team now predicts an earthquake of at least magnitude 6.4 by Sept. 5, 2004, in a region that includes the southeastern portion of the Mojave Desert, and an area south of it.

It’s not yet down to the level of specifying a city and a date, but it’s definitely an improvement.  Any little bit helps, and a prediction in the next few months for an earthquake might get otherwise unconcerned people to take action, rather than simply ignoring the threat (although I’m probably being too optimistic here).

A Different Kind Of Dog

Specifically, I’m referring to the K9 spam filter.  One of my missions when I went home for Thanksgiving was to quench the flow of spam into my mother’s inbox.  She had been complaining about hundreds of messages showing up whenever she would check her email.  At first I thought it was just that she was only checking it every few weeks.  When I got home I found out that this is the daily spam count.  Because she’s had that email address for over 5 years, and it’s simple and easy to guess, she gets over 100 spam emails per day. 

Since she’s not very computer literate I had to come up with some system where she could keep her email address and not have to do a lot of configuration or other work to filter out the spam.  I installed K9 and trained the filters (there was certainly an abundance of spam to train it on) and set up whitelists for people she commonly receives email from so their emails won’t chance getting accidentally classified as spam.  I also set up a filter in her email program that moves the email marked by K9 as spam into a spam folder.  I told her to check that folder every so often to make sure nothing good was in there and then delete it all.  I also showed her how to train the filter if it accidentally classified a good email as spam.  I hope that she will remember how all this stuff works.  It’s mostly transparent, but there is the possibility that it will mark good mail as spam and she’ll have to mark it as good in K9’s interface.

Jack Into It

It appears that people have come up with a new way to share music.  It’s a bit low-tech, but it’s more social than the usual P2P applications.  I guess you could call it face-to-face peer-to-peer networking.

Link via Slashdot.