WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week’s net, technology and science news
by Alan Lenton
This week we have, as usual, info, comments, the odd rant and some URLs, including Google arrogance, a satellite wakes up, YouTube bullying, Chrome browser extensions zapped without warning, Intel told to cough up by EU judges, Star Trek transporter science, on not becoming a games developer, buried backhoes, and a weird two-in-one monitor. When you finish that, there are URLs for mobile app problems, payback for a patent troll, internet heavies and spies, government cellphone snooping, more on the right to be forgotten, and open sourcing the Tesla patents.
Well, I hope you like it, because I’m afraid it’s going to have to last you over next weekend as well. I’m out of town next weekend on family business, so there won’t be a Winding Down.
But I’ll be back...
In fact I’ll be back the week after next with more stuff for your enjoyment and delight!
And now...
Shorts:
It reads like a space freak’s dream. The little satellite that could! A satellite that’s been out of touch for nigh on 20 years is reactivated by a bunch of enthusiasts who raise US$150,000 to pay for the communications. The satellite, called ISEE-3, was one of three launched in the late 1970’s to study the sun. Later it was diverted to chase through the tail of a comet, and eventually returned to watching the sun.
In 1997 operations were terminated, its two siblings having long since burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere. NASA stopped communicating with it, and it was assumed to have died. But that’s not the case. It continued to observe and send information back to Earth. But nobody was listening.
Until now.
Now, thanks to the efforts of a group of scientists and enthusiasts, we are able to have a two way conversation with it, and steps are getting under way to see how well it’s functioning. If all goes well then it will be given a new mission under its new owners. Way to go!
http://gizmodo.com/nasa-is-letting-citizens-commandeer-a-long-lost-satelli-1579851540/1583504727
http://space.io9.com/can-this-1970s-spacecraft-explore-again-1563432452
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/30/its_alive_isee3_responding_to_commands/
Google are starting to look more and more like Microsoft did in the 1990s – arrogant, complacent and convinced they know better than anyone else.
Two things that happened this month serve only to underline their attitude. The first was the news that the indie record labels have made a formal complaint to the European Commission to the effect that YouTube, which, of course, is owned by Google, is using bully boy tactics to force the smaller labels to sign contracts far inferior to those they are offering the big labels.
Now, lest you think that the indie labels are just a tiny proportion of the market, let me point out that collectively they employ nearly 80% of all workers in the business. The indies have their own joint licensing agency, Merlin, but Google is trying an end run by not talking to it, and attempting to pick off the indies one by one. No wonder Google have to keep reminding their staff not to be evil!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/04/indie_labels_take_youtube_to_eu/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/05/indies_music_explains_eu_emergency_plea/
But that’s not the only thing Google’s been doing this month. It’s just arbitrarily blocked all extensions to the Chrome browser that aren’t on its Chrome Store. No notification to the users, and no facilities for the users to unblock the extensions. There was no warning for most people. It was mentioned in an obscure Google blog, but who would read such a blog merely because they are a user of the Chrome browser?
Google claim that it was a security measure, and that they have the figures to back it. Interestingly enough, they are refusing to release these figures – so much for their much vaunted transparency. Their entire attitude is one of “We know what’s best for you. Now run along and play in the nice safe sterile environment we’ve set up for you.” Perhaps the real truth is that Google are aspiring to their own version of Apple’s walled garden...
Anyway, here are a couple of fawning media URLs for you to look at, and the third URL is a forum on which you can read Google spin droid Anthony Sargent laying down the official Google line. Me? I’m off to look at changing my browser from Chrome to Mozilla variant ‘Sea Monkey’.
http://news.techworld.com/security/3521963/google-calls-time-on-third-party-chrome-extensions-to-turn-security-screw/
http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/05/27/google-starts-blocking-extensions-chrome-web-store-windows-users-disables-installed-ones/
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/2yTVWdfC4Gg%5B1-25-false%5D
http://www.seamonkey-project.org/
And talking of bad boys, I see that Intel’s appeal against the EU’s 1.06 billion Euros (US$1.44 billion) fine for naughty behaviour in trying to prevent AMD’s rival chips from being sold, has been upheld by judges in the EU’s second highest court.
Ruling against Intel, the judges said that, “The General Court considers that none of the arguments raised by Intel supports the conclusion that the fine imposed is disproportionate. On the contrary, it must be considered that that fine is appropriate in the light of the facts of the case.” You can’t get much blunter than that!
http://www.techienews.co.uk/9713450/eu-court-ruled-out-intels-1-06b-penalty-appeal/
Homework:
One of the best known things to emerge from the Star Trek series is probably the transporter device that the crew use to get to and from planets. It’s also the one that seems to be absolutely impossible. However, in the light of new research results from Delft University in the Netherlands, there seems to be a gleam of hope.
Mooching through web reports about the Delft material, I came across a piece on the Star Trek site explaining why building a transporter is so difficult. It’s an interesting read, and you don’t have to be a fully-fledged scientist to understand it. So why not take a look and learn a little about the frontiers of hard science?
http://www.startrek.com/article/hopes-for-a-real-life-transporter-re-energized
Looking to become a games developer when you leave college? Been there, done that, and I would recommend thinking very carefully before you do indeed do that. It’s long hard hours, including weekend work. Unless you are very lucky, it doesn’t pay very well, and it can be very boring being a very small cog in the machine. Remember that many of the firms that come out at the top of the worst firms to work for are games companies. You don’t believe me? Then for more information I think you should have a look at the Kotaku site for a piece on just how frequently games developers get laid off, and why it isn’t going to get better any time soon!
http://kotaku.com/why-game-developers-keep-getting-laid-off-1583192249/+charliejane
For Geeks:
Come to Ye Olde London Towne and join the hunt for the buried backhoes! Yep. Really. In this tiny island we are a bit hemmed in, and nowhere is that more obvious than in London where house prices have gone through the roof (so to speak). Unfortunately, if you want to put in a workout room or a pool, there’s unlikely to be anywhere to put it, and the building regs won’t, in general, allow you to build upwards. (That’s not as stupid as it sounds – the houses are close together, and you’re not allowed to block off other people’s access to natural light.)
So what do you do when you are stuck with a US$3 million house with no pool?
You extend the house downwards. You dig out the existing bottom floor to make a new bottom floor to make an indoor pool. And how do you dig it out? With a backhoe! A relatively small one, of course, which you bring in by taking out a large window or something similar. However, sooner or later you are going to need to take it out again...
Take my word for it. It’s one helluva lot easier to put a backhoe into a house, than to get it out of the bottom of the hole it’s just dug! In fact, it costs more to get the backhoe out, than the backhoe actually costs to buy. So what does the enterprising builder do? Easy – get the backhoe to dig a hole for itself to go in, fill the surrounding space with rubble, and concrete over the whole lot. Sorted!
Estimates of the number of these machines buried vary between 500 and 1,000. Maybe I should write a game in which you have to collect buried backhoes...
http://www.newstatesman.com/business/2014/06/bizarre-secret-london-s-buried-diggers
If backhoes don’t appeal to you, how about a two in one monitor? Philips have just come out with a display that features two 19-inch monitors on a single stand. You can adjust the monitors’ angles independently, and either have them as a single display, or have different things on each. I admit that I only use a single large monitor, but to me it seems like an overly complex solution which already has a simpler option – two separate monitors with minimal surrounds...
http://www.gizmag.com/philips-two-in-one-monitor-split-screen/32490/
Scanner:
Quality, not quantity, is the real mobile app problem
http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobile-technology/quality-not-quantity-the-real-mobile-app-problem-244251
Payback time: First patent troll ordered to pay “extraordinary case” fees
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/its-payback-time-as-findthebest-wrests-legal-fees-from-patent-troll/
Internet giants erect barriers to spy agencies
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/07/technology/internet-giants-erect-barriers-to-spy-agencies.html?_r=1
Cellphone operator reveals scale of gov’t snooping
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/cellphone-operator-reveals-scale-of-govt-snooping/2014/06/06/b703183c-edc3-11e3-8a8a-e17c08f80871_story.html
Google to flag ‘right to be forgotten’ results
http://www.techienews.co.uk/9713213/google-to-flag-right-to-be-forgotten-results/
Elon Musk open sources all Tesla patents
http://www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2014/06/13/tesla-giving-away-its-patents-makes-sense/
http://www.33rdsquare.com/2014/06/elon-musk-open-sources-all-tesla-patents.html
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Barb, DJand Fi for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.
Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Thunderbird spam filter...
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
15 June 2014
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/index.html.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.
