Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on July 17, 2007 by CyberNet.

One week before the very last book in the Harry Potter series is released, and it’s already made its way to the BitTorrent Network. Over at The Pirate Bay, it looks like there are two downloads, one for the first 495 pages, and the other for the remainder of the pages.

Before you rush off to go get it, you may want to know that each page is an image, and the quality isn’t great. It kinda makes me wonder why you’d want to read the book in that kind of quality, but I guess if you’re that anxious to find out what’s going to happen, you won’t mind a massive headache from squinting at your computer screen.

Files sizes aren’t too bad at 46 MB and 26 MB each, and it looks like there are a decent amount of seeders (near 300 for each file), and a decent amount of leechers already downloading the book. And if by chance you don’t want to download the book, and you just want to know what happens (but what fun is that?), there’s a major spoiler here. By clicking that link, you’ll instantly know who dies, so unless you want to know, don’t click.

Good ole’ BitTorrent…

Source: TorrentFreak

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applied product design: When you ride a motorcycle you have to accept that there is an element of risk involved. Obviously that risk can be significantly reduced if you take the appropriate precautions and wear the correct protective clothing.

One very important innovation has been made in the area of the crash or safety helmet. 90% of motorcycle fatalities are a result of injury from the neck up, ThermaHelm technology aims to reduce this.

In the event of a heavy crash where the user suffers a heavy blow to the head the brain can swell which in turn causes an increase in brain temperature. Once the temperature of the brain reaches a certain critical level it becomes unresponsive and shuts down causing the persons heart to flatline.

To stop this from happening a new gel pack has been fitted into the ThermaHelm crash helmet that activates upon receiving a heavy impact, the gel pack then works against the increase in brain temperature to maintain a consistent and managable level of heat, reducing the amount of damage caused to the brain before emergency services can attend.

These crucial minutes after an accident can be vital and anything that can be done to help save lives must be considered a step in the right direction.

New Cool Crash Helmet Could Help Save Lives [applied product design]

This article was written on December 14, 2006 by CyberNet.

Earlier today Bill gates sat down with some of the top bloggers on the Web and Steve Rubel was included in that list. I could only imagine what it would have felt like to meet Bill Gates but I am sure there was a lot of energy in the room. The session lasted just one hour and each of the 14 bloggers were allowed to ask one question. Steve has a nice rundown of the questions on his post but I’ll highlight a few of them here (the answers are not direct quotes):

———-

Q) What did you want to be when you grew up?
A) A lawyer. I admired the work that (my father) did. When I got enthralled with math, I thought I would go into mathematics. Then computers came along. I became confused but eventually, it all became crystal clear in my freshman year. I also thought about being an economist.

Q) Will the $100 laptop be a success and are you behind it? Will it help developing countries?
A) There are people who think PCs solve the world’s problems. PCs have a role to play…you need to pick the right places, it’s easy to be overblown.

Q) What does the OS look like in 3-4 years? Where does consumer Windows fit in?
A) In three to four years it won’t change dramatically, but it will evolve faster. It will be more user centric as you move from machine to machine. It will replicate trivial stuff up to the cloud and back, cross-PC and cross-device.

———-

There was apparently a lot of Mac laptops in the room as well. Bill Gates said that he was happy about it because they sell a lot of software for Macs, which I could see but I’m sure deep down he started to wonder why so many bloggers use Macs. Personally, my primary PC runs Windows and it also dual-boots into OpenSUSE Linux, but lately I have had a craving to tinker with a new Mac and I would probably have one if they weren’t so expensive. If the price on those things come down I’ll surely give it some strong consideration.

Congratulations to the 14 bloggers who were among the select few chosen…maybe one day I’ll get the chance to be in their shoes and meet Bill Gates.

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This article was written on July 12, 2007 by CyberNet.

AOL had a choice, either they could go to court and fight or they could settle.  The reason? They were accused of refusing  to let customers cancel. To anyone unfamiliar with AOL, this accusation seems absurd. What company in their right mind would refuse to allow a customer to cancel.  For those familiar with AOL, you know how plausible and true this actually is.

Not wanting to have to go to court and fight, AOL decided to settle for $3 million dollars which will go to 48 states and the District of Columbia to pay for their investigation, not to the customers who were affected. Customers who were affected however, will receive refunds from AOL for any fees that they incurred after trying to cancel their accounts.

I never did have AOL as an ISP, however Ryan did several years ago. When he called them to cancel, the AOL representative offered three months of free service. Ryan took them up on their offer, and after the three months was up, he called back to cancel. Again, he was offered three free months of service. This happened at least 4 times before the AOL rep finally cancelled the account! Of course, they were hoping after the three months of free service was up that he’d just continue using their service and get billed for his use.

It’s been reported that employees at AOL would receive bonuses up to a whopping $3,000 if they were able to convince a customer to stay with them instead of cancelling. So my question for you is, what was your experience cancelling AOL? I’m sure there are stories to tell…

Source: BetaNews

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This article was written on October 05, 2007 by CyberNet.

In the very first file-sharing case to go before a jury, Jammie Thomas of Minnesota was found guilty of copyright infringement and ordered to pay $9,250 for each of the 24 songs that were shared over Kazaa back in 2005. That means she owes the RIAA $222,000 dollars. While that amount of money is ridiculous for 24 songs, it’s better than the $150,000 that the RIAA originally claimed that they deserved per song, or a total of 3.6 million dollars.

With a win under their belt, you can bet that the RIAA just got filled-up with enough confidence to take another victim to court. Because this was the first file-sharing case to go before the court, and the industry won, this may influence the outcomes of other similar trials in the future. Ray Beckerman, a New York Lawyer who writes a blog about the Recording Industry versus The People said that the verdict was “one of the most irrational things I have ever seen in my life in the law.  A verdict of $22,000 for infringement of 24 song files worth a total of $23.76? It is an outrage, and I hope it is a wake-up call to the world that we all need to start supporting the defendants in these cases.”

People around the Blogosphere, as you can imagine, are appalled at the fact that the RIAA won, but even more appalled at the fact that this woman has to pay $9,250 for each song. Here’s a sampling of the comments:

• At Computer World: “How long will it be before you will not be able to play a song loud enough for someone else to hear it other than the person who bought the song?”
• At Gizmodo:”This is shocking. not surprising, but shocking none the less. I guess my two mp3 players, that have thousands of songs that I bought on CD, are illegal contraband. My options of moving to Asian countries for work are looking more appealing. I’ve officially lost faith.”
• At Ars: “I believe the verdict was correct according to the law but is the law right? $222,000 for 24 SONGS??? I would be very interested in knowing what the RIAA offered to settle for as it was probably much less that this judgement. Sucks for Jammie!”

Any thoughts?

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