Is Unlocking Your Phone Really Illegal?

Legal protection for people who unlock their mobile phones to use them on other networks expired last weekend. According to the claims of major U.S. wireless carriers, unlocking a phone bought after January 26 without your carrier's permission violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") whether the phone is under contract or not. In a way, this is not as bad as it sounds. In other ways, it's even worse.

What changed? The DMCA prohibits "circumventing" digital locks that "control access" to copyrighted works like movies, music, books, games, and software. It's a fantastically overbroad law that bans a lot of legal, useful, and important activities. In what's supposed to be a safety valve, the U.S. Copyright Office and the Library of Congress have the power to create exemptionsfor important activities that would otherwise be banned by the DMCA. In 2012, EFF asked for -and won - exemptions for jailbreaking or rooting mobile phones to run unapproved software, and for using clips from DVDs and Internet video in noncommercial vids. Consumers Union and several smaller wireless carriers asked for an exemption for unlocking phones. The Copyright Office granted their exemption too - but sharply limited the window to just a few months.

First, the good news. The legal shield for jailbreaking and rooting your phone remains up - it'll protect us at least through 2015. The shield for unlocking your phone is down, but carriers probably aren't going to start suing customers en masse, RIAA-style. And the Copyright Office's decision, contrary to what some sensational headlines have said, doesn't necessarily make unlocking illegal.

Unlocking is in a legal grey area under the DMCA. The law was supposed to protect creative works, but it's often been misused by electronics makers to block competition and kill markets for used goods. The courts have pushed back, ruling that the DMCA doesn't protect digital locks that keep digital devices from talking to each other when creative work isn't involved. And no creative work is involved here: Wireless carriers aren't worried about "piracy" of the software on their phones, they're worried about people reselling subsidized phones at a profit. So if the matter ever reached a court, it might well decide that the DMCA does not forbid unlocking a phone.

Now, the bad news. While we don't expect mass lawsuits anytime soon, the threat still looms. More likely, wireless carriers, or even federal prosecutors, will be emboldened to sue not individuals, but rather businesses that unlock and resell phones. If a court rules in favor of the carriers, penalties can be stiff - up to $2,500 per unlocked phone in a civil suit, and $500,000 or five years in prison in a criminal case where the unlocking is done for "commercial advantage." And this could happen even for phones that are no longer under contract. So we're really not free to do as we want with devices that we own.

Phones are, of course, the tip of the iceberg of problems the DMCA has created. It kills aftermarkets, interferes with legitimate research, and squelches creativity in new media. The exemptions created by the Copyright Office can be helpful but, as this episode shows, they are too narrow and too brief. They also turn a small, specialized federal office into a sort of Technology Regulation Bureau. It's absurd that this small group of copyright lawyers and librarians is tasked with making decisions about the future of electronics markets.

So what can we do? Creating and defending the next round of exemptions will start in late 2014. If lawsuits happen, the courts should recognize that the DMCA is being misused, and refuse to apply it to anti-competitive software locks. Ultimately, what we really need is to either fix the exemption process or reboot the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA, or both.

Source: blog.gizmodo.com

http://gizmodo.com/5979879/is-unlocking-your-phone-really-illegal

New Bi-Plane Design Promises All of the Sonic, None of the Boom

The Concorde became the premiere transport across the Atlantic in part because it was precluded from flying over populated areas due to the sonic boom it created on takeoff. A new two-wing design, however, may hold the secret to silently breaking the sound barrier. Guile does not approve.
As a plane moves through the air, it stacks up air pressure in front of the plane and creates a vacuum in its wake. When the plane hits super sonic speeds—actually travelling faster that the sound wave it's creating—the plane will drag and compress the leading and trailing pressure waves together to form a single big shock wave moving at the speed of sound. The wave from this hits the ground is what's considered the sonic boom.
A team of researchers from MIT and Stanford University developed the bi-plane design based on a design devised in the 1950's by German engineer Adolf Busemann. He figured that a design using triangular wings connected at the tip would effectively cancel out the boom. His original design wasn't quite efficient—the inner channel prevented sufficient air flow— so the researchers had to tweak the design a bit.
And man what a tweak. The design they settled on—with a smooth finish on the inner edge of the triangle and small bumps on the outer—could reduce the plane's fuel consumption by 50 percent and allow speeds in excess of Mach 5. Not to mention they'd be able to fly over the country and not just the oceans. Get ready for two-hour jaunts across the continent if this design reaches the market. [Sonic Boom Wiki - LiveSciences]

Source: gizmodo
 

In the Future, Maglev Cannons Will Shoot Us Into Space

Today in grandiose space ambitions that would make even Newt Gingrich balk: a $60 billion, 1,000-mile long, 12-mile high, 20,000-miles-per-hour maglev train that starts on the ground and arrives in low Earth orbit. The minds behind the Startram project think it could reduce the cost per kilo (that's like 2.2 pounds American) for cargo from roughly $10,000 to just $50.
A quick cost-benefit analysis says this makes sense. But does the technology? Here's the gist, according to Startram (which, incidentally, is co-invented by one of the people who invented the superconducting maglev, Dr. James Powell): start a maglev train in a vacuum sealed tunnel on the ground, accelerate it for five straight minutes to speeds up to 5.6 miles per second, and launch it from the end of said tunnel—which, as it happens, needs to be raised about 12 miles into the sky where the air is thin enough that it won't destroy the spacecraft-train, which is now moving about 20,000 miles per hour.
Now, in principle, there's no part of building a super-fast maglev train that isn't doable (how safe it would be is another question entirely). But how do you permanently suspend the business end of this massive maglev cannon a full twelve miles in the air? With maglev, of course. Powell and his partner Dr. George Maise posit that if they were to run a superconducting cable through the ground beneath the ascending maglev tunnel carrying 200 million amperes and cable in the launch tube itself bearing 20 million amperes, the tunnel would remain suspended up there via magnetic levitation, with huge cables holding it in position.
Apparently Sandia National Labs has actually reviewed this proposal and couldn't find a reason to rule it out as a possibility entirely, though finding $60 billion in any budget for a far-out space train seems perhaps the least likely scenario out of all of this. But Startram does make a point: the space shuttle program alone cost nearly 3 times more than that over three decades. Maybe an express train to LEO is exactly what commercial space needs. But just for the record, we're not suggesting any of our readers sign up for the inaugural ride.

source: gizmodo

Even the Pedestrian You Accidentally Hit Now Gets Their Own Airbag

Volvo has always built some of the safest cars on the road, protecting the vehicle's passengers when the unthinkable happens. But now the company has added an additional airbag to its V40 that could save the life of a pedestrian.
In addition to a long list of new features designed to protect the passengers, the new V40 wants to make sure the chances of you hitting a pedestrian are lessened, and if you do, their chances of survival are increased.
First there's its new Pedestrian Detection system which uses a combination of grill-mounted radar and a video camera to detect and recognize a person in the vehicle's path. It can also gauge if they're moving and based on the car's current speed, whether the two are on a collision course. If there is a risk of the pedestrian being hit, an audible alarm will alert the driver. And if there's not enough time for them to react, the vehicle will automatically brake on its own.
But sometimes there's not enough time to avoid hitting someone who darts out in front of your car. So to minimize injuries, the V40 includes an external airbag designed specifically for passengers. Sensors in the bumper register the impact at which point the hood is released and automatically raised by an inflating airbag that extends far enough to provide a cushion as the person rolls up onto the vehicle.
The severity of the accident is dependent on the vehicle's speed and how the person was hit. But if I was a pedestrian who accidentally stepped out in front of a moving vehicle, I sincerely hope there was a Volvo logo on its grill. [Volvo via Gizmag]

Source: gizmodo

Wireless Data Could Move 1,000 Times Faster Thanks to Frequency Combs

That 4G connection pumping through your New iPad may seem lighting-quick compared to the 3G molasses you were used to, but LTE flows about as fast as old glass in the face of the Terahertz bandwidth that the University of Pittsburgh is studying.
Current radio frequency technologies are limited to operating on the Gigahertz range. However, a team led by physics and chemistry professor Hrvoje Petek has demonstrated a method of transmitting data in a portion of spectrum a magnitude higher—operating between infrared and microwave light. The team was able to devise a frequency comb "that spans a more than 100 terahertz bandwidth by exciting a coherent collective of atomic motions [read: oscillations] in a semiconductor silicon crystal." In fact, in their demo, the team achieved oscillations of 15.6 THz.
A frequency comb results from dividing a single color of light into equally-sized chunks that can be used in numerous applications—such as data transmission. "The ability to modulate light with such a bandwidth could increase the amount of information carried by more than 1,000 times when compared to the volume carried with today's technologies," Petek said in a statement.
The University of Pittsburgh News describes the team's endeavors as such,

To investigate the optical properties of a silicon crystal, Petek and his team investigated the change in reflectivity after excitation with an intense laser pulse. Following the excitation, the team observed that the amount of reflected light oscillates at 15.6 THz, the highest mechanical frequency of atoms within a silicon lattice. This oscillation caused additional change in the absorption and reflection of light, multiplying the fundamental oscillation frequency by up to seven times to generate the comb of frequencies extending beyond 100 THz. Petek and his team were able to observe the production of such a comb of frequencies from a crystalline solid for the first time.

Granted, this technology is still highly experimental but if it does reach market, users will be able to enjoy fiber-optic speeds—wirelessly. Of course, that's assuming Petek's team hasn't yet figured out how to leverage the coherent oscillation of electrons into petahertz (that's a QUADRILLION hertz) frequencies. [University of Pittsburgh - Pitt Lab of Ultrafast Dynamics via PC Mag]

Source: gizmodo

You Can Now Buy This Tiny Computer for $35 (Updated)

Source: gizmodo

Over the past year, we've seen a lot to get excited about over this tiny computer, the Raspberry Pi. It can stream video via Airplay, can run Quake III, yet only costs $35. Fortunately, now you can buy it.
The Model B Raspberry Pi is just finishing production in China, but is now available for pre-order. It features an ARM11 processor, 256MB of RAM, 2 USB ports, a LAN port, an SD card slot, audio-out and HDMI-out. It's capable of running an Ubuntu install or a version of Xbox Media Center, but nothing comes per-installed so you'll be spending some time at a command line.
But the best bit is: it costs $35. Thirty. Five. Freakin'. Dollars. This thing is incredibly cheap, and a great way to get you—or your kids—into coding. In fact, the beauty of the Raspberry Pi business model is that all the profits will be pushed into a charity set up to encourage kids to get into coding, an initiative which will itself use these tiny computers.
You can buy Raspberry Pi online from Premier Farnell or RS Components.
Update: Demand is proving high, and the Farnell and RS websites are struggling to deal with the demand. Patience, young grasshopper.

How to prepare for Google's privacy changes

Source: CNN
By Doug Gross, CNN

(CNN) -- On Thursday, Google's much-discussed new privacy policy goes into effect.
To say that the change has stirred concern on the Web would be an understatement. Public officials and Web watchdogs in the United States and elsewhere have expressed fears that it will mean less privacy for users of the Web giant's multitude of products, from search to Gmail to YouTube to Google Maps to smartphones powered by the Android operating system.
Google points out that the products won't be collecting any more data about users than they were before. And, in fairness, the company has gone out of its way to prominently announce the product across all of its platforms for weeks.
The major change is that, instead of profiling users separately on each of its sites and products, Google will now pull all of that information together into one single profile, similar to what's found on Google's dashboard page.
The result encapsulates perhaps the most basic conundrum of the modern Web. More information means better service (and potentially, more targeted advertisements). But that service (in this case more accurate search results, more interesting ads and new features that work across multiple sites) requires you to give up some of your privacy in return.

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz has called it "a somewhat brutal choice."
Google, not surprisingly, takes a different tack: The payoff for the company collecting your data is cool new services. For example, they could push cooking videos to you on YouTube if you'd been looking for recipes through Google search, privacy director Alma Whitten wrote in an editorial for the Sacramento Bee.
"We just want to use the information you already trust us with to make your experience better," she wrote. "If you don't think information sharing will improve your experience, you don't need to sign in to use services like Search, Maps and YouTube.
"If you are signed in, you can use our many privacy tools to do things like edit or turn off your search history, control the way Google tailors ads to your interests and browse the Web 'incognito' using Chrome."
Wednesday is the last day for people to tweak those Google settings before the new policy begins, although they can change them afterward as well.
Here are a few tips on how to keep your data a little more private on some of Google's most popular features.
Don't sign in
This is the easiest and most effective tip.
Many of Google's services -- most notably search, YouTube and Maps -- don't require you to sign in to use them. If you're not logged in, via Gmail or Google+, for example, Google doesn't know who you are and can't add data to your profile.
But to take a little more direct action ...

Removing your Google search history
Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation has compiled a step-by-step guide to deleting and disabling your Web History, which includes the searches you've done and sites you've visited.
It's pretty quick and easy:
-- Sign in to your Google account
-- Go to www.google.com/history
-- Click "Remove all Web History"
-- Click "OK"
As the EFF notes, deleting your history will not prevent Google from using the information internally. But it will limit the amount of time that it's fully accessible. After 18 months, the data will become anonymous again and won't be used as part of your profile.
Six tips to protect your search privacy (from the EFF)
Clearing your YouTube history
Similarly, users may want to remove their history on YouTube. That's also pretty quick and easy.
-- Sign in on Google's main page
-- Click on "YouTube" in the toolbar at the top of the page
-- On the right of the page, click your user name and select "Video Manager"
-- Click "History" on the left of the page and then "Clear Viewing History"
-- Refresh the page and then click "Pause Viewing History"
-- You can clear your searches on YouTube by going back and choosing "Clear Search History" and doing the same steps.
Gmail Chat
When you start a chat with someone, you can make the conversation "off the record." Off-the-record chats will not be stored in your chat history or the history of the person with whom you're talking. All chats with that person will remain off the record until you change the status. To go off the record:
-- Click the "Actions" link at the top right of the chat window
-- Scroll down to "Go off the record." Both you and your chat partner will see that the chat has been taken off the record.

source: cnn