Allmans, Cheap Trick sue Sony

“The class-action lawsuit claims that the artists’ contracts require Sony to pay its artists about 30 cents out of every 70 cents it gets for digital downloads–out of a total of 99 cents that iTunes charges per song. But the complaint maintains that Sony is only paying artists 4.5 cents for each song.

The case hinges on whether a digital download is comparable to a sale of a CD, as the labels contend, or more on par with a license of a song for use on a movie soundtrack, for example, as the artists claim.”

mp3.com via Juha

500 lb Potato Battery

“I built a potato battery out of 500 pounds of potatoes. It powered a small sound system. […]

Each potato generates about 0.5 volts and 0.2 milliamperes. I connected groups of potatoes together in series to increase voltage and then connected these groups together in parallel to increase amperage. The entire 500 lb battery generated around 5 volts and 4 milliamperes.”

A. Latteier via TSOB

Software tracks mood swings of blogosphere

“[MoodViews] tracks about 10 million blogs hosted by the US service LiveJournal. […]

About 250,000 new LiveJournal posts are created every day and roughly 150,000 of these include a label for one of hundreds of different moods. Moodviews keeps track of these labels and generates a graph, revealing emotions shifts across all LiveJournal blogs over time.”

New Scientist
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Hopeisen Omenan käyttäjät käräyttivät PowerBook-varkaan

“Espoolaisen Kari Päivärinnan kannettava varastettiin autosta keskellä kirkasta päivää Oulun keskustassa kolmisen viikkoa sitten. Päivärinnan kaveri kertoi tapahtuneesta Hopeisessa Omenassa ja viikkoa myöhemmin tuntomerkkejä [vastaava] kohde löydettiin Huuto.netistä. Koneen sarjanumero paljasti[, että kyseessä oli varastettu laite], joten asiasta ilmoitettiin [poliisille]. Koska virkavalta ei reagoinut asiaan toivotulla tavalla, Homppulaiset päätivät hoitaa asian itse.”

Omenatarha via Juha
linkitykset omiani

Digital cameras individually traceable

“A new forensic technique means many digital photographs can now be traced to the individual cameras that took them. The method works by analysing imperfections in the cameras’ light sensors. […]

The technique can even trace digital images that have been compressed or cropped: “We tried all the stuff that people normally do with digital images, and found it was resistant,” [Jessica Fridrich at Binghamton University] told New Scientist.

But she admits that extensive testing will be needed to determine precisely how accurate the process is, and what the chances of an error are.”

New Scientist

What's New in Thunderbird 1.5.0.2

“Thunderbird 1.5.0.2 provides stability and security enhancements that are part of our ongoing program to provide a safer email experience for our users. We recommend that all Thunderbird users upgrade to this latest version.

Here’s what’s new in Thunderbird 1.5:

The Rumbling Edge has a more detailed list of notable bug fixes.”

Mozilla via Juha

A Tour of Microsoft's Mac Lab

“I’m going to write a little bit more about what I do to help MacBU ship great software and provide some color around what’s it’s like to work on Mac software at Microsoft. Often when we have press events or special visits from our MVPs I’ll give them a tour of the Mac Lab and explain what we do. They’ve always found it very interesting and so I thought I’d share a virtual tour of our Mac Lab.”

D. Weiss via Juha