Quick Note

Just a reminder, although this is predominantly a personal blog, there is some content here which is explicity for my university course, and will be tagged as INB 102. You’re more than welcome to comment on it, but it’s not the purpose for this blog

Let’s fix the imbalance in the world

I was thinking about how to encourage good music the other day and I had a brainwave!
If we pirated ALL music and didn’t pay for it, regardless of whether we liked it or not, the artists would be forced to tour in order to make money. Thus, all the bad artists which are electronically enhanced would eventually fold as people would be craving actual entertainment! If Micheal Jackson wasn’t so messed up it would be the perfect time for a comeback!
It would get to the point were no cd’s were being released and the music industry went bankrupt trying to sue EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THE WORLD! I’m sure they’d try. Then, out from the crumbling ashes the good artists would emerge, playing hugely successful shows and would start releasing media so that people could continue to enjoy the music after the gig. They’d incorporate the media into ticket prices as they know that no one will buy music anymore, and thus the music industry will be saved by pirating!
Fanciful, yup. Could it work? Maybe. It’d sure be fun to see what happened though if the entire world stopped buying music overnight

If there’s any bands out there who read this, leave a comment, I’d be interested to find out how much it costs to make a CD. Could it be practical to include one in the price of a show? I know I’d be keen if I got a CD out of it (or even a preloaded flash drive )

Pirate bay creators convicted

Well, I’d imagine right now the record companies are out celebrating their ‘victory’ with a one million dollar bar tab at some ritzy hotel. Today the 4 creators of the Pirate bay were convicted and each sentenced to a 1 year jail sentence and ordered to pay back around 900 000 dollars each.
I read something interesting about this, and thought I’d share it. It came from here http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/apr/17/pirate-bay-startups and basically what someone suggested was that the record companies are not suing for losses to their music, but rather suing because their business model isn’t working like they want it to anymore.
That would have to be the most interesting thing I’ve heard in a long time, I never really thought about it that way but it makes sense. Are they suing so that say their 4 biggest artists (which no doubt are probably crap) each get the money? No. Their getting it for themselves. I cannot see how the music industry can be so monopolised! Independent artists should rally together and start a class action against the music companies, sue for the big companies having a virtual monopoly on the market.
The fact that they think they can and do make their laws apply overseas is appalling, and in the end when if they finally decide that bittorrent is a good thing, how do they expect to sell it, after demonising it? You can’t tell me that the majority does not feel a hatred towards the record companies. Voice it, do what you can, make them understand that we do not want to pay for crap anymore. We want quality entertainment, and if it’s there we’ll pay for it, but don’t gouge our eyes out.
Pay yourselves reasonable wages, it shouldn’t cost millions to make an album, indie artists can and often do make much better with much less. Move with the times, maybe then people won’t download your products.
If there is wholescale copyright infringement of your products (for lack of a better word) you need to stand back and work out what’s wrong, not just sue because you don’t like it.

Seems I’ve been a bit lazy as of late making sure that I keep this updated with lots of interesting and useful tidbits of information. First there’s the cardboard box that might just help with world hunger (and save forests in the process): see here. Also, on a pretty awesome retro note we’ve got famous modder Ben Heck who has created a Commodore 64 Laptop. It looks awesome and what’s even more impressive is that it was done in under 2 weeks!. Amazing stuff.

Finally, check this out. I don’t really have much of a clue what it is they do, but it sure as hell looks neat!

That’s all from me for now

New Pages Up

Hey all, I have recently added some pages to the blog, the INB 102 page, which covers what i’ve learnt in/from/as a result of studying the Emerging Technologies course at QUT. I have also added an interesting links page as well, it’s pretty sparase at the moment, but I’ll add to it as I find / remember neat things i’ve found on the internet. It’s a big place after all…

HP Touchscreen PC

HP Touchscreen PC.

Although touchscreen technology has made leaps and bounds since the first touchscreen devices were released, it has never really been adopted too much into mainstream products.

Recently I had a look at a HP Touchscreen PC, to see how this technology has progessed. The computer itself looks relatively futuristic, with a screen that folds out from the box itself. From what I could read of the specifications, it appears to use a laptop chipset to help it keep such a small form factor.

Unfortunately, the model that I looked at was a demo unit in a store, and as such was not technically supposed to be used, something we guessed when we found it powered down. Unfortunately, since we did not know the code to logon to the pc, and after a few guesses we couldn’t work it out.

Anyway, the first pitfall with the device revolved around the wireless keyboard. It didn’t work, or it had run out of power. Regardless, this meant that we ended up having to use the touch screen a little earlier than originally planned. It seemed responsive, however the glossy screen seemed to be very susceptible to finger prints, which is pretty silly in a touchscreen PC.

Using the on screen keyboard to type in the password, it became immediately obvious that the keyboard is the only reasonable option for text input. I have quite skinny fingers, and I found it very difficult to hit the right button on the before mentioned keyboard.

So, what use is having a touchscreen then? According to HP demo’s, you can use it to navigate music collections, scroll through documents, files with ease and go through other multimedia collections.

I don’t really see the point in the product though. It does what it says on the box, but overall, I don’t see what use it has outside of looking cool in a store display.

A bit later i’ll post up a video of me failing to use the pc.

Eee Keyboard

Okay, here’s something that’s been floating around the internet for a little while now since it was unveiled.

Welcome the EEE Keyboard.

In essence it’s a keyboard with an integrated 5″ touchscreen and a glut of inputs compared to the average netbook (or am I not allowed to say that anymore psion?)… sorry nettop pc.

What is however interesting is that it has HDMI, and ever more interesting, wireless HDMI. Now I’d be pretty surprised if this was running off the previous netbooktop boards, they did not have HDMI support.

Could it be running on the nvidia ion platform? Without it, it most likely would not be able to play back HD content (1080P). If it can do this, then with a decent NAS, then IMO this could possibly be one of the greatest media pc’s ever released.

Time will tell though, and with a release date sometime in the second half of this year I can’t wait to see what ASUS manages this time.

Welcome

Just thought I’d send out a general hello and welcome to my blog. Hopefully I’ll be able to provide you with some interesting stuff to look at, random bits of useful miscellany from me, and even something funny or useful sometimes!