Four short links: 8 July 2010

Book Law, Ubiquitous Touchscreens, Asymmetric Reputation Warfare, Data Liberty

  1. Copyright and Other Legal Issues Posed by the Google Book Search Settlement (Pam Samuelson) — slides from a talk that comprehensively runs through the questions posted by GBS settlement. Staying in GBSS means authors give up possible claim to 100% rights in e-books, which they might o/w have under Random House v. Rosetta. Lots of angles I hadn’t thought of before.
  2. Turn Your Kitchen Counter into a Touchscreen (Gizmodo) — researchers [at Intel Labs] have created a rig with two cameras, one to capture the image of the objects and the other to capture depth. The depth cameras help recognize the objects and the difference between the hand touching the table or hovering over it. A pico-projector helps beam the virtual menus. The cameras and the pico-projector can be combined into devices just a little bigger than your cellphone, says Harrison. Sprinkle a few of these in different rooms and point them on tables, and the system is ready to go. (via RDiva on Twitter)
  3. Hypocrites and PhariseesOr consider Fast Company, which posted a picture out of context of me holding a bag of white powder. This bag of white powder was something called Piracetam. It is a perfectly legal nutritional supplement along the lines of Ginkgo Biloba- it improves memory. It was in a thread with me asking people what nutritional supplements they take. Out of context, it makes me look like a drug dealer. Such deliberate dishonesty has become a matter of course for “journalists” who have a personal dislike of me. It’s bloody hard to fight Big Media on credibility and win, because Big Media have years of “oh, it’s in print, it must be true” behind them. As is often said, you only need to see a newspaper story on a subject you know something about to question every other story too.
  4. PoyozoPoyozo is an automatic, personal diary system to help reclaim and consolidate your ever-expanding digital life with simple visualizations that you can use every day. (via jonrb8 on Delicious)
tags: , , , , , , , ,