Monthly Archives: June 2009
Net Neutrality and the Berner Convention
The Berner Convention (originally 1886, latest revision 1979) is the mother of international copyright law. An international treaty “For the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works”. The treaty automatically assigns copyright to an author for his/hers lifetime plus 50 years. … Continue reading
Boo!
There are various ways to look at problems with greenhouse gases. The livestock-sectoris produces 37% of all human-induced methane. You can try to convince people to eat less meat, but another possibility is putting the cows on a diet. Stonyfield … Continue reading
Jamiton
A “soliton” is a self-reinforcing solitary wave (a wave packet or pulse) that maintains its shape while it travels at constant speed (Wikipedia). Researchers at MIT have discovered that the mathematics describing traffic flow under high densities are quite similar to the fluid dynamics equations … Continue reading
The future of TV
Classical music is one of the most demanding performances for audiovisual encoding and decoding. Wide dynamic range, listeners with trained ears, many benchmarks. The highest barrier for using the Internet to show performances. Medici.tv is a French company that shows how … Continue reading
2-seater hydrogen car for lease… in 2013
Small British company RiverSimple demonstrated the prototype for a two-seated hydrogen powered vehicle that might start production in 2013. What I like is that they plan not to sell it, but to lease it for about $315 per month, including … Continue reading
Light my path
Create your own bicycle lane in the dark: project it on the street with LightLane. From designers Alex Tee and Evan Gant, of Massachusetts-based product innovation firm Altitude Inc. (Source: www.toxel.com)
Battery life statistics…
Newsweek brings us the truth behind battery life claims. We all know that we never get the manufacturer’s claim but now I finally understand why. As Newsweek brings it: “Imagine if automakers got together and started measuring the gas mileage … Continue reading
Space Race
A few days ago New Mexico started with the first purpose-built commercial Spaceport, called Spaceport America. The Spaceport will operate like an airport. Virgin Galactic and other companies will use it as a base for their commercial spaceflights. They claim: … Continue reading
6 Mile high
As our desire to get hyperconnected is insatiable, airlines (at least in the USA) are responding fast. USD 12.95 for good wifi on a 3 hour flight is worth it. And when its good enough to support a video … Continue reading
The scientific relationship between filesharing and content creation
While rather naieve politicians in the Netherlands blindly follow propaganda of the media industry about file-sharing, while the UK is no different, some researchers from Harvard Univiversity have tackled the real hard question: does file-sharing stifle content creation? As they rightly … Continue reading