Category Archives: Technology

BitTorrent goes legit

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Interesting times.

LOS ANGELES — Warner Bros.’ video unit will sell movies and television shows to BitTorrent for legal downloads from the website that was once blamed for aiding the swapping of illegally copied films and programs.

Starting this summer, Warner Bros. will make more than 200 films available at BitTorrent.com, including blockbusters such as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and TV shows like Babylon 5.

The pact marks a big step for Hollywood as it increasingly makes digital files of movies and TV shows available on the web because until last year, BitTorrent’s software and website were considered to be aiding piracy of major studio films.

But in November, BitTorrent agreed with the Motion Picture Association of America, which represents Hollywood’s major studios, to help stem illegal swapping of digital movies and TV shows by removing links to pirated copies.

Executives from Warner Bros. and BitTorrent said the MPAA pact and new digital rights management software from BitTorrent were key elements in bringing the parties together.

“We’ve come to a point where you have sufficient consumer demand and we have the technology that is now mature enough,” said Jim Wuthrich, senior vice president at Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.

The content will be available on the same day and date they are put on sale in retail stores, but cannot be copied and burned onto a DVD. They must reside on a computer drive…

[Link]

Jeff Jarvis has a post about this on Buzzmachine.

GMSV is nicely acerbic:

This morning the studio, which has been fighting a bitter battle against file-sharing networks, announced a plan that on the surface appears to be a forward-thinking adaptation of a new distribution system. “We’ve been struggling with peer-to-peer technology and trying to figure out a way to harness the good in all that the technology allows us to do,” Kevin Tsujihara, president of Warner Brothers Home Entertainment Group, told the New York Times. “If we can convert 5, 10 or 15 percent of the illegal downloaders into consumers of our product, that is significant.” It certainly would be. But I can’t imagine Warner will ever achieve conversion rates like that if the Torrented movies are priced the same as a shrink-wrapped DVD, yet encumbered with a robust copy protection that allows them to be viewed only on the computer to which they are downloaded. Leave it to Hollywood to “embrace” peer-to-peer distribution and all the economies and efficiencies that go along with it and then ruin it by using it to peddle an inferior and overpriced product.

Creative swarms

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AN interesting new way of financing film-making…

A Swarm of Angels reinvents the Hollywood model of filmmaking to create cult cinema for the Internet era. It’s all about making an artistic statement, making something you haven’t seen before. Why are we doing this? Because we are tired of films that are made simply to please film executives, sell popcorn, or tie-in with fastfood licensing deals.We want to invent the future of film. Call it Cinema 2.0.

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Scientists harness the power of pee

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Ahem. No sniggering at the back. This is a serious subject.

A urine powered battery the size of a credit card has been invented by Singapore researchers.

A drop of urine generates 1.5 volts, the equivalent of one AA battery, says Dr Ki Bang Lee of the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology. He says the technology could provide a disposable power source for electronic diagnostic devices that test urine and other body fluids for diseases like diabetes.

These currently need lithium batteries or external power sources. But with this system, the body fluid being tested could power the unit itself.

Lee, who reports the new battery in the latest Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, says a smaller version could potentially power mobile phones in emergencies.

The battery is made of a layer of filter paper steeped in copper chloride sandwiched between strips of magnesium and copper, then laminated in plastic.

It’s activated when a drop of urine is placed on the battery. The urine soaks through the paper providing the necessary conditions to generate electricity. The magnesium acts as the battery’s anode, shedding its electrons, while the copper chloride acts as the cathode, gathering them up.

This electron flow delivers power greater than 1.5 milliwatts, the researchers say.

Coming soon: electricity generation from hot air emitted by University Committees.

Thanks to Quentin for the link.

Bush’s hydrogen fantasies: “forever far off”

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From a Technology Review interview with Ernest J. Moniz, an MIT physicist and former Under Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy…

Tech Review: President Bush has been talking a lot about hydrogen. Is the hydrogen economy the answer?

Moniz: There are many here on campus who have written about it — John Deutch had a Science paper about it and John Heywood has testified to the Congress about it and has written several reports with colleagues. The hydrogen transportation economy looks to us to be very, very challenging, very far off. And “very far off” could mean: forever far off. Given the cost barriers that must be overcome with fuel cells, the challenges for storing hydrogen onboard, and the infrastructure problems for delivering hydrogen — it makes one wonder whether alternative technologies, which require far less disruption to the infrastructure and are far less of a cost challenge, but are highly efficient, don’t essentially accomplish the same goal…

So who’s making the money out of Web 2.0?

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Bandwidth providers, says Nicholas Carr…

The way the Web 1.0 dot-com pioneers used pricey computer gear, the Web 2.0 digital-media pioneers use bandwidth. They devour huge gobs of it. YouTube, Forbes’s Dan Frommer writes, is probably burning through a million bucks a month in bandwidth costs, a number that’s going up as rapidly as its traffic. Follow the money. In this case, as Frommer reports, the trail will lead you to Limelight Networks, which YouTube uses to stream all that user-generated content – like 200 terabytes a day – back to us users. Once again, it looks like it’s the suppliers – in this case, the content delivery networks – that are positioned to be the most reliable money-makers as more and more investment pours into the creation of our vaster, user-generated wasteland.

Yochai Benkler’s book…

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… is out! It’s entitled The Wealth of Networks and is the publishing event of the year as far as I’m concerned because he’s the scholar best-placed and best-equipped to put the network revolution into context. The title — a nod to Adam Smith — indicates the scale of his ambitions. It’s available as a free download under a Creative Commons licence from here here and for purchase from Amazon.co.uk. I’ve both downloaded and ordered, not just because I want to support the author, but also because, in the end, it’s really useful to have a printed copy — especially one that is destined to become as well-thumbed as this.