Archive for the ‘3D’ Category

Weekly News Roundup (3 July 2011)

Sunday, July 3rd, 2011

How’s the second half of 2011 been treating you? Not too bad I hope. I’ve been busy working on my little Android app, which you might remember me mentioning a couple of months ago. I’ve learnt a bit more about Android programming since I last updated the app, you know things like how not to make it crash every time it starts up, or how not to make it drain up all your CPU and your phone’s battery in no time. Small things like that. And so I thought I better update the app. It’s coming along, and it should be ready next week or the one after. Android programming is not easy, as there are quite a few quirks you have to work around with, and also deal with the constant OS updates (what works in Android 2.2 may not work in 2.3, with Google not providing a whole lot of warning about the impact of potential changes). So the next time an app crashes on you, don’t immediately curse the programmers, because it’s not always their fault (it’s mostly their fault, but not always).

Let’s get on with the news roundup.

CopyrightIn copyright news, the MPAA has been busy this week, with two lawsuits to contend with, one in the UK (via the MPA, its International wing), and another back in the States.

In the UK, the MPA is trying to get the high court to force BT, a large British ISP, to ban access to the Usenet sharing website Newzbin. The high court has already ruled in favour of the MPA agaqinst Newzbin, except shortly afterwards, Newzbin2 sprang up overseas, and it’s still unknown whether this new incarnation of Newzbin has anything to do with the original. Regardless, the MPA doesn’t want the millions they’ve spent fighting Newzbin to go to waste, and now want to force ISPs to block access to all incarnations of Newzbin. This brings up an interesting question. If this new Newzbin, dubbed Newzbin2, is run by completely different people, outside of the jurisdiction of the UK, then does the earlier Newzbin ruling really apply? And if the high court this time is treating Newzbin2 as a new website, ruling it guilty based on past precedent, then can they also apply the same to every other website that the MPA wants banned?

Newzbin 2 Logo

The MPA wants UK ISPs to block access to Newzbin

And at what cost to ISPs? The MPA says that BT already has a filtering system, used to block child pornography, which they say can be used to block Newzbin/Newzbin2. But for other ISPs that don’t have a blocking system in place, they will have to invest in one at great cost. And whatever system will probably be easily bypassed anyway. And of course any ruling that forces ISPs to take action in effect shifts responsibility to copyright control over to ISPs, and somehow make them all responsible for their subscriber’s activities. I hate to use the same analogy again, but should a phone company be held responsible for all crimes committed by account holders? Some argue that ISPs profit from infringing activities (users buy more bandwidth to download pirated stuff), but phone companies do also benefit from illegal activities by charging account holder fees, so what’s the difference, other than the fact that the “crimes by phone” lobby, if it exists, isn’t as strong as the entertainment industry lobby. And since the MPA/MPAA’s members only include the big 6 studios (Disney, Fox, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros.), it’s not even a situation where the lobby group representing all studio’s interests.

The other lawsuit the MPAA is involved in is against file hosting website, Hotfile. Hotfile has complained to the court that the MPAA’s request for information has become unreasonable. Court documents reveal the MPAA simply wants everything Hotfile has, including financial records, all user details (even those not participating in unauthorized sharing and downloading), and even Hotfile’s website’s source code. Hotfile’s business would effectively be ruined if any of these are handed over, but the MPAA wants it all, and Hotfile are calling this “murder by litigation”. And maybe that’s the MPAA’s real goal. The way I see it, if you’re going to offer online digital storage with sharing, then unauthorized sharing is unstoppable. It may not be a movie, TV show or a music track, but it could still be the unauthorized sharing of business documents, trade secrets, or even national security data. So the choices are to ban this type of extremely useful service online, and go back to the bad old days of sending files section by section via email, or prosecute those that actually do the uploading. Analogy time again. If a spy steals national secrets and send them back to his home country via Gmail, should Gmail be held responsible for not properly filtering all emails and attachments?

I guess the argument would be that Gmail is not primarily used to share national secrets, and one of Hotfile’s main uses may be piracy related. But then if this is true, why are ISPs being held responsible for pirated downloads, because piracy is not one of the main uses of an Internet subscription (despite what the MPAA wants you to believe).

A Lonely Place for Dying Poster

'A Lonely Place for Dying' is trying to change the way movies are funded for their theatrical release, by embracing BitTorrent networks

And while Hollywood, and by Hollywood, I mean the big six studios, are obsessed with fighting the Internet, independent producers are trying to find ways to leverage the web to promote and sell their movies. Hollywood veteran and Star Trek icon James Cromwell has produced a film, ‘A Lonely Place for Dying’, and instead of being afraid of BitTorrent networks and people downloading the movie for free, he’s embracing it as a new way to promote and secure funding for the film’s theatrical release. Instead of using Hollywood connections to secure major studio backing for the film’s theatrical run, instead, the film is being distributed for free in serialized form on the BitTorrent powered VODO network, along with other notable P2P partners, including The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, uTorrent and Frostwire (a who’s who list of “Hollywood’s” most wanted, if there ever was one). Funding will be via donations, and the hope is that enough publicity is built up to allow the film to have a loyal following *before* it makes its way to the big screen, almost the reverse of what usually happens.

This is great for independent film producers, without the budget and backing of major studios. But it could be bad for the majors. Not just that independents can now find other ways to get their movies screened, without having to play by the majors’ rules, but also because the Internet has become the ultimate critic. If a movie is bad, the Internet will be all over it, and pretty soon, it will be all over for the film’s theatrical run (and future disc sales).  And for those that still enjoy a bad movie now and then, instead of having to pay to see it, they can simply torrent it instead, and denying the major studios an important source of their income: crappy movies. Hollywood produces a lot of crap, and in the past, people would go and see the movie and then find out it’s crap, and even then, some will be adventurous enough to rent or even buy the movie on disc. Then the Internet came along, and people no longer needed to pay to enjoy crappy movies, and this is when Hollywood became extremely worried. The reason why I think this is the case is because good movies have still managed to earn a lot of money, despite Internet piracy becoming widespread – some have earned even more than before, and some of that is actually because of the Internet and the word of mouth effect (and you can tell the studios know this, because find me one movie these days that doesn’t have its own website, Twitter account and Facebook page?). In many ways, the film business has become a lot more democratic. The choice used to be between paying to watch a movie, and not watching the movie. Now, the choice is between paying to watch something, and not paying to watch the same thing – and that has made the people that want to maintain the monopoly scared, and they’ve tried everything, from DRM, to political lobbying, to maintain the status quo.

High Definition

Which brings us to HD/3D news. 3D has helped the majors in a big way because, without having the same 3D experience at home, the viewer’s choice becomes limited again to paying for something, or not watching it at all. Except Hollywood’s greed has ensured every movie, including all the bad ones, are in 3D, and even ones that aren’t shot in 3D are converted to 3D in post processing.

As much as I hate Michael Bay’s films, and I do hate most of his films, at least he sees the importance of giving viewers the proper 3D viewing experience (or as he claims with Transformers 3), and not some half-assed afterthought that so many 3D movies are these days. Of course, it would be even better if Bay also paid a little bit of attention to plot, dialogue and character developmental as well, but that’s a debate for another day.

And to make it worse, the 3D premium is getting ridiculous, to the point where it is hurting 3D presentations at the box office.

So really, if Hollywood wants viewers to make the right choice, to pay for movies, then they need to stop making bad movies. And if they’re still complaining about not making enough money on movies such as Avatar, or The Dark Knight, then that’s just greed talking, because a billion or more in pure revenue for a single movie, in my mind, is good enough already.

For some reason, the rest of this WNR is all to do with Sony. It wasn’t intentional at all, but that how the week unfolded.

The first news item has to do with Sony movies disappearing from Netflix. Hands up if you thought that this was some kind of move by Sony to do with DRM, a protest against digital distribution from the owners of Blu-ray, or some kind of anti-competitive thing. In the end, it had nothing to do with Sony at all, well not directly anyway. It’s all to do with digital distribution deals that Sony signed with Starz, who then sold the rights onto Netflix, and in the short-sightedness of it all, the deal has included a provision which limited the number of people that are allowed to access Sony movies online at any one time. With Netflix’s explosion in popularity, this limit was soon reached, and hence, the agreement had to be terminated, and Sony movies pulled until a new agreement can be made. It certainly looks like Sony sold the online rights to its movies very cheaply back in 2008, and that Netflix, via Starz, will now have to pay a lot more to get the rights back.

Gaming

The second of the Sony related stories (don’t worry, there are still two more), has only a tenuous link to Sony. Former enemy, George Hotz (geohot), has apparently landed a great job at Facebook, just months after being sued by Sony.

Some will think, hack Sony => great job at Facebook, but it’s more of a case of smart guy => get job at Facebook, I think. Regardless of what you think of geohot’s actions, he’s one smart guy. And Facebook users should be relieved that he’s now working for the right side, because if you think Sony’s 100 million user data leak was something, just imagine if Facebook had a similar data breach – bedlam, I think, is the best word to use if this were to happen. Remember when geohot quipped that Sony should hire him if they’re serious about security, and then Sony tried to use this against him in the lawsuit as evidence of financial blackmail … maybe, just maybe, Sony should have done what Facebook has done and hired the guy, and maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t be the butt of every Internet security joke at the moment.

Sony PS3 Hacked

Let's not forget that the PS3 was only hacked because Sony's poor implementation of their security design

Or they can just stick their head in the sand and blame the whole incident on something else. Apparently, it was not Sony’s awful decision to remove OtherOS from the PS3, not when it has been so heavily promoted by the company as a feature that sets the PS3 apart from all the other consoles. No. Sony’s controversial CEO, Howard Stringer, says it was all because poor innocent Sony tried to do the right thing, to protect their games from piracy, that led to the PSN hack. This seems to suggest OtherOS was an attempt to prevent the PS3 from being hacked for piracy, something Sony has denied time and time again (saying OtherOS removal was for financial reasons, due to the high cost of maintaining this feature), and seems to suggest Sony is linking OtherOS and the Linux community to piracy once again. Of course, removing OtherOS not only did not prevent the hacking of the PS3, it led to it, and hacking groups all concentrated their effort on cracking the then impregnable PS3 security system. And then came the lawsuits, the Anonymous DDoS attacks, and the rest is history. A couple of weeks ago, I posted my opinion of how Sony should change as a company in order to put this whole incident behind them properly. Right now, it looks like business as usual for Sony, as they arrogantly deny that, in the end, they were more to blame for the PS3 hacking and PSN breach than anyone else. Not pirates. Not hackers, who could only have exploited the gaping holes you left for them. But the blames lies with a company that just doesn’t really give a crap about its customers, and are proud to show that they don’t care in multiple ways, from badly designed DRM, to pulling features people paid for, to not securing their data.

Which is probably why the lawsuit launched in New York against Sony won’t be the last. The lawsuit claims Sony neglected to protects it customer’s security, and not only did they fail to pay attention to “known vulnerabilities” in the outwards facing servers, they even sacked security staff just weeks before the PSN breach, the lawsuit claims. I don’t want to comment on the merits of the lawsuit, but it’s clear that Sony needs to be held responsible for their total lack of respect for security, because a breach like this doesn’t usually happen without a corporate policy that actively contributed to the disaster.

Alright, enough ranting this week. See you in 7 day’s time.

And I suppose I should mention tomorrow is the 12th anniversary of this website, Digital Digest (well, it wasn’t called this back then). Hard to believe I’ve been doing this for 12 years already, but I’ve never been bored (thanks to companies like Sony that continue to make headlines for all the wrong reasons, and reasons that I can explain here). Thanks for everyone who has visited, and put up with my ramblings (luckily, the WNR is a relatively new invention in the history of Digital Digest), this website wouldn’t be here without people like you!

Weekly News Roundup (5 June 2011)

Sunday, June 5th, 2011
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO

If this picture of a motherboard turns you on, then my computer buying guide is for you

Are you planning to buy a new PC soon? And are you willing to spend more money on a PC than what’s considered sane today? Then read the latest edition of my If I Were To Buy A New Computer Today feature, dubbed the Sandy Bridge edition, as this is the CPU that’s all the rage these days. You may laugh and point at any guide that recommends paying more than $1800 for a new PC, in these days of tablets and netbooks and whatnot, but hey, some of us still play PC games. And do CPU intensive things such as video conversion. I have to say, the most exciting thing about Sandy Bridge for me, apart from the lower starting price points for such a new part, is the SSD caching feature introduced by the new Z68 chipset. Regular reader(s) will be aware that I’ve been bigging up SSDs since 2009, but the stupid things refuse to drop down in price enough to prove that I was right. But with SSD caching, where you use a much smaller (and hence, cheaper) SSD drive as a cache for your TB sized cheap HDDs, can give you some of the benefits of SSDs without most of the negatives (low capacity, high price, etc…). For this alone, Sandy Bridge is worth upgrading too, even with the added hardware DRM (or not).

News wise, it’s not been a huge week, hence why I felt the need to pad the week with the computer buying feature. So let’s get started.

CopyrightLet’s start with the copyright news, which surprisingly, isn’t too forthcoming this week. In fact, there is only one story in the “copyright gone insane” category this week, which, you have to say, is an improvement.

Unfortunately, this one is right up there in the insane rankings, as the US senate debate plans to jail people up to 5 years for sharing YouTube videos. This isn’t as far fetched as you might think, because this is one of those “road to hell is paved with …” things, and if you break down the issues, all of them seem to make sense. First of all, you have the disharmony between civil and criminal copyright laws, in which there are civil penalties for performances, but no criminal penalties. So let’s “harmonize” the two sections of the copyright act. Fine. How about classifying video streaming as a kind of performance? Well, it appears the courts have been doing this for a while now, so I guess it’s fine too. And what about the differences between hosting a video, linking to it and embedding it on your website? Well, ICE has seized several domain names recently for websites that only linked or embedded content, uploaded to websites such as Megavideo, and ICE got the seizure orders by going through the court (albeit in a very one sided argument), so I guess that’s not a huge problem either. So to sum up, video streaming is a performance, and hosting, linking and embedding is really the same thing, when the court is concerned these days. And an unauthorized performance should carry criminal sanctions of up to 5 years in jail, much like like every other kind of copyright abuse. Add them all up: new senate bill that could lead to 5 years in jail for embedding YouTube clips. Now, if Senators are more educated when it comes to technology, particularly the issue of Internet content distribution, and/or if they’re not being “pressured” by lobbyist, then maybe, you would have a bill that doesn’t threaten to send half of the entire US population to jail (who hasn’t embedded a video, and who hasn’t done it with a video that used copyrighted clips, even if only for a small part of the video or soundtrack). For example, you could ensure that criminal sanctions would only apply in the case of massive infringement, such as linking/embedding thousands of videos, and for profit. Instead, we have a bill that describes a digital “performance” as 10 viewings in any 180 day period. Maybe in the real world, if I had a show and 10 people turned up, that may count as a performance. In the digital world, 10 views is hardly viral stuff, especially if it took 180 days to get this many views. But what can you do? Well, you can go after the people that upload the infringing content and only those people, but that would be too hard, so let’s just arrest everybody.

yongzh's N64oid Emulator App

The removal of yongzh's emulator apps from the official Android Market by Google may not be what it looks like

There are two more copyright related stories, but they’re not as crazy, and so as a rule, are not as interesting. First up, we have Google possibly going after emulator apps on the Android Market, with apps from two developers being removed in the past month alone. Emulators have been proven time and time again to be legal in courts all over the world, so Google going after them, especially proclaiming Android as the “open” platform, seems to be a bit hypocritical. On the other hand, we don’t know why the removed apps were removed, while others are still happily being offered, so perhaps there are other reasons for the removal. Certainly, with some of the removed apps by developer Yong Zhang, there are licensing issues at play (open source related stuff), so who knows. If by this time next month, more emulators have been removed, then perhaps it signifies a trend. Right now, it just means you’ll have to get these apps from one of the billions of other Android markets.

The other Android related story has a bit more substance to it. This involves the newly released YouTube video rental service on the mobile platform, and how you can’t use it on rooted phones. It’s definitely a DRM related thing, and I’m sure the content holders providing content for the service will have asked for  these draconian restrictions. But it’s the typical backwards thinking that plagues the digital entertainment industry, where they’re so afraid of their precious streams being stolen, that they end up barring people from being able to pay for content, legally. Wouldn’t it be better to ensure more people had access to your legal service, as opposed to less? And it’s not as if ripping movies from DRM protected YouTube video streams is the most popular or easiest way to illegally obtain or share movies online, so they could have no DRM, and nobody would probably even bother, when they can just rip a DVD or Blu-ray. It’s like HDCP protection in HDMI, which was initially such a big deal and caused untold compatibility problems and silliness, because content owners were afraid people would record/rip digital content straight from the cable, if it went unprotected. Then HDCP got cracked, as expected, and do we see a huge surge in HDMI-rips? No. Do you know why I know? Because I just made up the term “HDMI-rips”. In fact, if you search for “HDMI rips” on Google or Bing, all you end up with are articles about HDMI cable rip offs, which is a discussion for another day.

Also, if I somehow manage to get the YouTube rental app running on my rooted phone, does that stream them become unauthorized, and jail time?

High Definition

In HD and 3D news, following last week’s story about the 3D cinema craze coming to an end, box office results for the US Memorial Day Weekend seems to suggest that it really is happening.

The long weekend capped off a set of very disappointing results, but only for 3D showings. In fact, the best performing movie wasn’t even available in 3D, and perhaps it was only successful because of the lack of the 3D distraction. Certainly the theory mooted last week was that for every extra dollar that 3D presentations earn, there’s more money being lost through increased 3D production costs, marketing costs, and lost sales at the popcorn stand. But it’s the usual Hollywood thing, 3D for 3D’s sake, whereas they’d better off having movies like Avatar that’s been written, directed and shot for 3D, even if it means only a couple of such movies every once in a while. But no, everything has to be in 3D, and the hype dies out because of all the lame 3D movies.

Gaming

And finally in gaming, after a nausea inducing session of Wipeout HD on my 3DTV yesterday, I can confirm the PSN is back and the “Welcome Back” goodies are now available to download as well (I still haven’t made my decision on which other free game I will download).

PSN Welcome Back Pack

PSN is back online, and the welcome back pack is available to download

Those that want to download the free games need to be patient though, because the claim and download process for me was riddled with error messages, that retrying time and time again seem so to fix. Some will and are still complaining about the free games being offered, and how old most of them are, but as someone who didn’t really used the PSN that much in the past before, I’m not complaining too much.

So just as things seems to be getting back to normal for Sony, guess what? They get hacked again. It’s not the PSN again, so no need to ring your nearest game store and ask what kind of console exchange offer they have on at the moment, but it’s certainly not what Sony wanted so close to the PSN hack. SonyPictures.com was hacked by the same group that recently hacked PBS, with account details accessed and taken, as well as other stuff. According to the hacking group, LulzSec, they had access up to one million Sony Pictures account passwords, all of which were stored as plain text in the database. Read any “noob guide to user databases” on the Interweb, and the first lesson is always about not storing passwords as plain text, so how Sony could have got it so wrong, I have no idea. I guess because no financial information was being stored, Sony thought nobody would bother to hack the database, and the rest is history. It really paints a picture of a company that doesn’t seem to have any security policy at all, or at least it’s not enforced, and really, would you trust such a company with your financial details? And this is not a rhetorical question either, because you can answer this very question in a new poll I just put up.

Also, the hackers detailed how they got into the Sony system, and it wasn’t some kind of super hack that can only be pulled off by a hacker that would make Neo from the Matrix look like a script kiddie, or a sophisticated social engineering “my voice is my password” style operation involving a blind guy that has great hearing. No, it was just your plain old SQL injection, which for the uninitiated, means injecting SQL commands via poorly written web scripts that don’t check for inputs. To be fair, it is the most common type of web programming security SNAFU, but you would have thought that after the PSN hack, Sony would have performed an extensive security audit on all their web assets, knowing now that they’re a major target for hackers (but they always were, even if they didn’t want to believe it). Sony has since confirmed the attack, and have contacted the FBI.

Alright, that’s it for the week. Thanks for reading, linking, tweeting, facebooking or whatever it is that you young folk do these days. Have a good one.

Weekly News Roundup (18 April 2011)

Sunday, April 17th, 2011

I was hoping to bring you another monthly edition of the NPD video games analysis, this time for March 2011, but unfortunately, Sony, my long time nemesis, decided not to release figures for the PS3. This means I’ll have to wait until the many Boffins I’ve already sent out to return from retrieving the information – I really hope not too many of them die as a result. See, this is why the NPD was under pressure from game companies not to regularly release data, because otherwise it would have been much harder to hide a bad result. And so Sony not releasing the data, causing me to not have anything to write about, must mean the PS3 results were even worse than, well, the recent results (despite Sony claiming blah blah blah double digit growth blah blah blah for PlayStation hardware platform blah). This can only mean one thing, and that is that PS3 sales for March was negative – more people returned PS3s in March than people who actually purchased one #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement

So until my Boffins return, there’s no NPD analysis, and if none of them make it, then I’ll probably have to make up some figures. Come on Pachter, do your thang!

(In unrelated news, figures were also missing for my weekly Blu-ray/DVD, so no analysis there either. Also the above statement seems to suggest that Michael Pachter is a Boffin, which is not the case as far as I’m aware)

CopyrightLet’s get started with the WNR proper with some copyright news.  My reference to a particular South Park episode might have gone unnoticed with my headline of Fighting Around The World, Piracy Edition, it was still interesting to find out just how much anti-piracy stuff was being debated around the world. Because, as everyone knows, the most pressing political, economical and social concern for countries around the world, and the most important of the “war on” wars, is in fact the war on piracy (and not even the African coast kind).

South Park "Fighting Around the World"

Only 7.35% of people got my reference to South Park in one of this week's headlines

So you have super-conglomerates forming in Australia to stop a country with a super huge population of almost as many people as Texas to stop the piracy problem that is costing the industry more than $60 per man, woman, child, in Australia, according to industry estimates. All of this because they couldn’t get a judge to go along with their plans to make ISPs responsible for the billion dollar problem, and so they’re trying to bypass the court’s decision and head straight to government lobbying and “exerting pressure” on the communications industry. Over in the UK, pretty much the same thing is happening, with ISPs defending their case in court, while copyright holders go crying to the government for assistance. The copyright movement these days seems to want a government run blacklist of websites that they deem to be against their interests, so while The Pirate Bay is a shoe-in for the list, other websites, blogs and services that may disrupt the entertainment industry’s attempt to hold on to their dying business model may also just make the list, with little avenue of appeal for those being listed.

Certainly something like this is being considered in Denmark, although since it actually costs money to run such a scheme, MPs there are suggesting that yet another industry should shoulder the burden of helping another industry avoid having to innovate. MPs there are saying that browsers makers, who they say have been so successful in blocking malware websites (yes, because hardly anybody gets malware these days and most people don’t even need to install security software #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement), should apply the same thing to websites not cooperating with the entertainment industry and the copyright lobby. Cue some respected law professor complaining about the trivial matter of freedom of speech and information, blah blah blah. And yes, a browser based blacklist, that surely won’t ever get bypassed, assuming people just don’t switch to one of the billions of other browsers available for free on the Internet. And this might even spur TPB to make their own browser, they can call it Internet Exploder or FireF#@(, which would not only get around the blacklist, but also randomly inserts torrent links into any web page you visit. That would be awesome.

And it’s not just respected law professors, it’s also senior advisors to EU judges that are warning against implementing the type of anti-piracy measures the copyright lobby has been pushing, namely ISP based three-strikes monitoring, and filtering schemes. Apparently, just because people, whose connections have been suspected of being allegedly used to download possibly copyright infringing material, or websites that may have participated in providing infringing content, but we’ll never be sure because the issue hasn’t been debated and decided in a court of law, might not have allowed the individual(s) affected to “challenge it or object to it”, or for the overall systems to have “adequate safeguards”, may all be an issue when it comes to human rights and stuff. I certainly don’t need (or have) a senior legal advisors to tell me that by giving power to the entertainment industry to arbitrarily add to a blacklist of websites they don’t like, that this somehow would get abused due to the lack of checks and balances and avenues of appeal, and that by turning a matter usually decided in a court of law into a simple matter of copying/pasting a new line into the blacklist spreadsheet, is somehow taking away people’s rights.

EA/Bioware proofed this week that pirated games are so much better than paying for the original by not properly maintaining their DRM authentication servers, and blocking legitimate gamers from playing the offline, single player Dragon Age: Origins game for 4 days. People who pirated game were unaffected. I could make my usual rant against DRM, but I think in this instance, nothing more needs to be said. Except I must question why is DRM still needed for a game that’s one and a half years old? Surely, anybody who wanted to pirate it would have done so already, and people who wanted to buy it would have done so already in one of the many Steam sales. Surely most of the pirating happens in the first few months anyway, and so that’s really the only when publishers need to use DRM (to ineffectively prevent piracy), so why not release a patch after the first three month to remove the DRM and avoid having to finance DRM authentication.

Garry's Mod

Garry Newman of Garry's Mod fame attempts to embarrasses pirates

Or how about DRM that uses the reverse logic of most DRM schemes – how about making pirates jump through hoops, and giving legitimate customers a better experience? That’s exactly the point Garry Newman or Garry’s Mod tried to prove this week, when it introduced a bug in the pirated version of the popular Source game engine mod kit, asked if people were having issues with the bug, which then successfully identified and embarrassed all the pirates, while giving buyers “something to be smug about”. But thick skinned pirates won’t care, and might go around the Internet bragging about using pirated software, which means that DRM, other than the odd bit of fun, is not really effective at all. And poorly made and maintained efforts like the EA/Bioware one may in fact drive people to piracy, a point made by Good Old Game’s PR manager, Lukasz Kukawski. As I’ve always said here, if DRM has been proven to not work as intended, that is to stop pirated versions from being downloaded and used, then what’s the point? Game publishers are better off saving the large amounts of money they devote to developing, licensing and maintaining DRM, and use that money to make a better game, or even provide some physical collectable object in every game box (or redemption online for digital copies) – add value to purchases, not take away value, that’s all I’m trying to say here.

And it’s not just game purchases that needs added value (as compared to the pirated version). TV shows, one of the most pirated types of content on the Internet, is another example where value subtraction is being used by copyright holders in a vain attempt to squeeze every dollar from licensing deals. What I’m talking about is that it takes months for a TV show episode that’s aired in the US to make its way around the world, that is if it makes it across at all. Copyright holders expect more money to be paid for early viewing, and so overseas TV networks often take the cheaper route and delay broadcasts. And so, given people’s need today to have everything and have it now, most will have to source the content from illegal outlets. Yes, some episodes are available for purchase on iTunes or whatever, but why should have to buy something that’s free for people in the US, and not just on broadcast TV either, but via Internet outlets such as Hulu? And even those, like me, who pay subscription fees for cable/satellite TV, often still do not get new episodes aired until a week or more later, again probably as the result of greedy copyright holders and TV networks not willing to pay up. And this all causes piracy. UK’s Sky is trying to solve this problem by airing shows hours after the original US air date. Sure, the air time might be in some unholy hour of the night, due to time differences, but some Sky boxes capable of scheduled recording, that’s not a problem for many. I think it’s time for release windows to end – global release and airing times will help reduce piracy, as it saves people the trouble of downloading an inferior, even if ad-free, version (this is particularly true of HD broadcasts). Don’t subtract value from legitimate content by having stupid release windows – all you end up doing is to lose money to piracy, while gaining only a small percentage of that loss back through better licensing agreements).

YouTube’s copyright school? Almost not worth mentioning considering how ridiculous the whole thing is, and how it won’t stop copyright infringement on YouTube. Yeah, I’m sure a 4.5 minute video and a 4 question quiz, in which you only have to answer 75% of the questions correctly, will solve the YouTube piracy problem. Because obviously, people are only infringe copyright because they don’t know the law, not because they just don’t care.

High Definition

In 3D/HD news, NPD has a new report out that tries to explain why people just don’t like 3D. And it’s not surprising to find that having to wear glasses is actually the most common reason for the 3D hate.

Samsung 3D active shutter glasses

People who hate 3D hate having to wear 3D glasses, a new report tells us

Last year, price was a major issue, but with 3D TV pricing dropping every day (the report found that, amazingly, 3D plasma TVs have on average dropped 59% in price!), having to wear glasses is now a bigger problem. And it’s a bigger problem than with cinema 3D, because cinemas use passive glasses, which are easier on the eyes for those that suffer from motion sickness, whereas active shutter passes can make someone like me nauseous in about 10 minutes of wear.

The survey did find that 3D Blu-ray was the preferred method of getting 3D content, ahead of 3D broadcasts, and that 3D awareness was higher than before. I’m still going with my prediction that 3D will be standard by the end of this year, and it will be marketed in the same way having Internet access on TVs is being marketed today (ie. not much marketing at all, and certainly not much of a price premium).

Gaming

And finally in gaming, the big news of the week was that Sony finally decided to settle its lawsuit against George Hotz, aka geohot.

Geohot has been criticized for accepting the terms of the lawsuit, which dictates that he must not come near a Sony equipment if his intentions are not pure, but geohot explains this isn’t a problem because he’s boycotting Sony products anyway, and wouldn’t come near one even if it had a “hack me” sign painted on it. Still, Anonymous are not happy at the settlement conditions, and has planned more attacks on Sony servers.

Anti Sony

I'm surprised this is the first time I've actually used this anti-Sony graphics in the WNR

A Sony boycott used to a lot more painful, because they’ve made some decent stuff over the years. But these days, it’s not too hard to avoid having to buy a Sony product, because they no longer make the best of anything, not TVs, not game consoles, and certainly not portable music players (how did they ever screw up the Walkman brand, I’ll never know). Blu-ray is about their only real success recently, although you can still buy the best Blu-ray equipment and still completely avoid Sony products.

Despite being too scared and embarrassed to release March PS3 figures, no doubt because it reveals that even the PS2 outsold the PS3 for that month (#NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement), Sony were eager to boast about going over the 50 million mark worldwide for the PS3 (just shy of the Xbox 360’s total), and the 8 million Move controllers shipped since launch. The Move number doesn’t compare too badly to Kinect’s 10 million shipped figure, although it doesn’t compare too well either, considering the Kinect number (of 2 million more units) was reached a whole month earlier, despite being launched one and a half month later. In other words, 8 million Move controllers in just shy of 6 month, while Kinect shipped 10 million units in 4 month. Not quite the 5:1 Pachter was suggesting, but Kinect’s console attach rate is probably at least twice that of Move if you take into consideration two player gaming needs (you need two Move controllers for 2 player gaming, counted as 2 purchases, while the same can be achieved with a single Kinect purchase).

Oh, almost forgot what I was trying to post about, is that Netflix for the Xbox 360 now has Kinect support as promised. But it’s very much limited and not quite useful, but it’s free, so whatever. Hopefully, the Hulu Kinect interface will be less of a rush job.

Alright, that’s that for this week. Still no word from my Boffins, but I can probably guestimate the PS3 numbers using the vague statements Sony have made (double digit growth for the PlayStation family, which is probably closer to 10% than 99%, PSP also grew thanks to price cut, so have to take that into account and since Sony did not say PS3 sales grew in double digits, I also suspect it did not, but can’t confirm so will give Sony the benefit of the doubt)  and the boastful statements they did not make (the PS3 obviously did not outsell the Xbox 360, and I doubt it outsold the 3DS as otherwise Sony would be screaming the news from top of the roof, or at least Jack Tretton anyway considering his views on the “babysitting” 3DS), which puts the PS3 numbers somewhere between 345,290 (10% up from last year) and 380,000 (the 3DS number). Elementary my dear Watson.

See you next week.

Weekly News Roundup (10 April 2011)

Sunday, April 10th, 2011

Welcome to another edition of the WNR. I have a feeling this is one of those editions where the number of news items is actually not all that great, but they’re all stories well made for a good rant or two (of five), and so it’s one where people are going to have a look, and say “oh no, not another ******* essay”. If by essay, you mean angry incoherent rant, that is. So let’s get started.

CopyrightSo let’s start this week with copyright news, the rantiest of sections, as per usual. While politics in Washington seems more and more divisive, with the entire system almost grinding to a halt this week, and the two major parties locked in an epic ideological struggle, there still exists some signs of cooperation between the major political entities. Unfortunately, the cooperation only seems to exist when the issue of copyright is being discussed, which suggests that the MPAA and RIAA’s lobbying effort has been a very apolitical one.

The only political contest, in relation to copyright, has been from parties and members competing to show just who loves the entertainment industry the most, and it is one fierce fight for the title of teacher’s pet. The House Committee on Intellectual Properties have been holding hearings all week, grilling the likes of Google (more on that later) on copyright issues, and trying to pass new legislation, that COICA thing I mentioned last year. The MPAA has taken the opportunity to hail the success of Operation In Our Sites, the Homeland Security ICE operation that seized dozens of websites suspected of providing copyrighted content. Yes, this is the same operation that seems to have had no actual effect on piracy activities on the Internet, an operation where many of the closed websites have already been replaced with new websites, or even the same websites under a different domain name, the same operation led by a junior agent whose legal paper work consisted mainly of copying/pasting previous MPAA statements on copyright, and an operation where due process was bypassed, where those accused did not have adequate avenues of appeal, and where we know for a fact that a lot of the closures were questionable to say the least (including a few websites with good credibility within the industry for allowing artists places to leak content to for promotional purposes, but ones that the RIAA didn’t personally approve because it might have threatened their domain, and so had the US government close these websites just to be sure using piracy as an excuse).

And of course, in US politics these days, it’s all about jobs. Except the fact that nobody is actually lo0king to put in any concrete actions to create any jobs, the “oh noes, piracy costs jobs” excuse has been brandied about quite a lot this week. You see, COICA is not about making the FBI, Homeland Security and ICE the private police force of the MPAA/RIAA, allowing them to bypass due process if and when needed. No, COICA is about protecting “property rights and American jobs”, and it’s so great that it will “not only save jobs” it will mean the United States can even “gain jobs”. And before you want to point to a political party and blame them for all of this, you cannot, just like you couldn’t really with the Global Financial Crisis, the investment banks and the fiscal and regulatory policy at the center of it, because this baby is a bi-partisan effort, which in Washington these days just means the lobbyist managed to distribute financial favours in an equal and fair manner, to all concerned, no one was left out. How socialists of them. Why spend millions on research and development, testing new innovation and meeting market demands, when you can simply bribe the right people to get the tax payers to fight your fight. And that’s exactly what is happening, with COICA promising millions and millions of tax payer money to help the MPAA and RIAA not have to change their business model, even as the two parties bicker over trimming the deficit.

Protest in Egypt

Congress asks: If Google can topple a government, with a tiny little bit of help from the people of that country, why can't it stop piracy?

But to fight the publicly funded fight, you have to have a target. And this week, the target was Google. A bi-partisan show was put on to allow Google to testify in front of the House Committee on Un-Authorised Downloads Activities, but the show trial was really just an occasion for the MPAA/RIAA’s intentions to be heard, via the mouthpieces they’ve already paid for. So why isn’t Google filtering results for pirated contents, asked one mouthpiece. Why is it that Google can stop child pornography but not stop copyright infringement, asked another. Because it’s quite clear that both types of activities are just as illegal and serious as the each other, and so warrants the same type of attention (if not more for MP3 downloads, because there’s no lobby for stopping child pornography, is there?). Even when Google tried to respond that spotting child pornography is a bit easier than trying to find out which YouTube uploads used which company’s songs and who actually holds the copyright, the search engine giant was accused of of having a lack of will when it comes to stopping piracy. I mean, if Google can topple the head of a country in weekend, one politician asked, why can’t Google stop “facilitating illegal content and illegal products”? I mean it’s not like the Tunisian or Egyptian people had anything to do with what happened in those countries, right? Yeah, they helped, but Google did most of the work, and so should do most of the work when it comes to stopping the revenue decline of the entertainment industry.

The MPAA was also busy this week suing video rental website Zediva this week. Zediva had attempted to bypass the MPAA studio imposed digital streaming licensing fees, otherwise known as the anti-innovation tax, by doing something, at least to me, felt very clever. Instead of purchasing the right to stream content over the Internet, Zediva allowed people to rent physical copies of movies, and instead of sending out those copies, they streamed the content to customers and put the physical copy to one side to preserve the one viewer/one copy relationship. In other words, Zediva helped you to play the disc you rented, over the Internet, for you. And this allowed the company to skip paying the overpriced streaming license. Remember these are the same people that don’t even like it when you try to stream your discs from your lounge room to your bed room, so it’s no surprise that streaming across the entire Internet, even if a physical disc was there somewhere, was going to get the MPAA angry. And trust me, you won’t like it when the MPAA is angry. That somehow Zediva can get away with having lower expenses by actually having a physical copy of a disc for ever person that wants to stream the movie, suggests that perhaps the whole point of going digital and away from the physical (ie. lower manufacturing, duplication, transportation costs, and greater economy of scale with *more* people being able to access *more* movies, leading to lower prices) seems to have been lost.

High Definition

In 3D/HD news, a bunch of researchers in the UK have conclusive proof that if you get paid to do a study by a group with special interests, the results of your study might just be exactly what the special interests group had wanted to get out of the study.

My Dinner with Andre

I wonder if the 3D Blu-ray version of My Dinner with Andre would still be 7% more stimulating than the regular Blu-ray version

I kid. Seriously, researchers at the Sussex Innovation Centre has found, through the painful sounding skin conductance tests and EEGs, that viewers are more emotionally stimulated when watching 3D Blu-ray compared to Blu-ray, and Blu-ray compared to DVDs. Yes, the study was paid for by the European Blu-ray Disc Association, but science is science. So there you have it, scientific evidence that Blu-ray is in fact better than DVD, and that 3D Blu-ray is the best of all. Of course, assuming they used the same movie for comparison, watching a movie made for 3D, in 2D, is basically watching a bunch of gimmick shots that make no sense at all in 2D (“what kind of message is the film-maker trying to purvey, about the relationship between society’s ills and the total lack of compassion in today’s youth, in that scene where the five ping pong balls fly towards to camera”). If somebody ever makes a 3D version of My Dinner with Andre (yes, I watched *that* Community episode), and then use that to do the above test, I wonder if 3D Blu-ray would still come out 7% “better” than the 2D Blu-ray version (and the Blu-ray version being 12% “better” than the DVD version).

Much maligned rental company Redbox, in trouble for daring to make DVD (and now Blu-ray) rental easier and cheaper than it should be, may be hooking up with Hulu Plus, if it ever actually launches its digital service. Hulu, being owned by an actual movie studio, hasn’t really been under attack by the industry, which is strange considering it’s one of the best ways to watch free TV shows, even for those outside of the allowed regions if you’re clever enough with a VPN, making it a very good alternative to piracy (even though the actual result is the same, in that I didn’t wait for the local airing of the show, denying the local station advertising money and denying studios greater licensing fees, and also didn’t buy the show on iTunes or DVD, if it’s there, and denying the studio further income). I guess it’s not just that Hollywood doesn’t want innovation, it just doesn’t want innovation to come from places and companies where it had no control over. So not anti-competitive at all, really.

And an update on my Godfather II Blu-ray disc problem that I posted about last week, Technicolor were nice enough to offer a replacement disc even though from what they’re telling me, they’re not really in charge of Australian market, nor have they encountered this problem with Australian discs.

Gaming

And finally in gaming, Anonymous is now targeting Sony, and so if your PSN connection has been on the fritz, then you know why. They’re attacking Sony’s servers because of Sony’s treatment of hackers geohot and Graf_Chokolo, amongst others.

I’m only surprised that they didn’t do this earlier, considering Sony’s history with DRM, copyright protection, and the fact that they are active members of both the MPAA and RIAA, earlier targets of Anonymous. A typical Sony response would be to block entire IP ranges where they suspect the attack may be coming from, and this may be why your PS3 cannot connect to PSN temporarily.

DS vs PSP (Worldwide), Wii vs PS3 (US)

Nintendo may only make "babysitting" consoles, but they sure do sell a lot more of them compared to Sony's "real" machines

But for all of the PlayStation’s troubles recently, the head of Sony Computer Entertainment America, Jack Tretton, is bullish about the prospects of the PS3 and the company’s next portable gaming system, the NGP. And Sony being bullish means they have to attack their rivals, in an almost arrogant manner (almost?). Attacking both the Wii and Xbox 360 for running out of steam, Tretton laughed at the fact that the Wii (and I guess the cheaper version of the Xbox 360) does not come with a hard-drive, that the Wii’s motion control system is “cute” but not effective, and that only the PS3 has the staying power as it is “just hitting its stride” 4 years after launch. The most curious attack was against the DS, in particularly the new 3DS, which Tretton called “for children”, and that no “self-respecting twenty-something” would have anything to do with a portable console that has sold more than twice as many units as the “superior” PSP. Then Tretton went on to big up the NGP, which he says will have every “every [bell and] whistle”, even if the sale price is likely to be much higher than the 3DS (or if not, then Sony would have to eat up a lot of that in losses).

Where to start …

Despite the PS3’s technical advantage, are games on the platform *that* much more technically advanced as similar games on the Xbox 360? With the PS3’s superior graphics, sound, storage, are games on that platform so much more fun than even the game that came free with the Wii? Does superior technology actually translates to fun?

Sure, the PS3 is likely to outlast the Xbox 360 (well it should, considering the 360 was launched a year earlier), and definitely the Wii, but for how long? So when Microsoft releases the Xbox 720 using today’s best technology, are Sony confident that their PS3 can still compete, and for how long? Another 6 years from now to bring the PS3 to the promised 10 year lifecycle?

As for the DS being for babies or whatever Tretton was trying to say, is that really a bad thing, you know, to make games and game consoles for families and children? Isn’t this how the video game industry started? And isn’t that how the industry is evolving (back) towards once again? And you might as well include smartphone gaming as well, because I’m pretty sure Angry Birds’ colourful birds, slingshot, and green pigs, is not geared towards your average tech-savvy 20 year old male.

But Sony have a right to solely produce consoles aimed at a specific demographic, the twenty-something male, but that’s just another way of trying saying they’re making a console that ignores all the other demographics. Just don’t be surprised when you’re not making as much money as the other companies. While the company is busy trying to convince hard-core gamers that the Move is for them, Microsoft is simply busy selling Kinect’s, and making money off families and children that like that sort of thing (while still happily making money off hard-core gamers).

And if Tretton’s stance is any indication, the NGP will fail in the same way the PSP failed, by concentrating too much on the technology, and not enough on actually making the thing fun and stuff. I’m sure the NGP is superior to the 3DS in all ways possible, heck, maybe even the PSP is already superior, but will it be more fun? I don’t give a damn if it can run PS3 graphics or not, because I don’t want to play PS3 games designed for a 50″ screen on a 5″ screen, and I’d rather have a game designed specifically to get the best out of the portable experience, than a game that only has superior graphics.

And just like the Xbox 360, I’ve run out of steam (ranting uses a lot of steam, you see). See you in a week’s time.

Weekly News Roundup (27 March 2011)

Sunday, March 27th, 2011

Another week, another WNR. A pretty quiet week I think, one where I wasn’t paying much attention anyway, so it was good that it was a pretty quiet week and I didn’t miss any big stories because I was too busy wasting time. Anyway …

Copyright… let’s start with copyright news. One news that did escape my attention from last week was the White House’s attempt to make unauthorized video streaming a felony. Actually, I did see the news, and dismissed it as typical posturing. And it was just a white paper anyway, and you can buy tons of white paper at Staples for less than the price of a sandwich.

TorrentFreak

TorrentFreak is under fire of music industry expert Moses Avalon, who says the website could be shut down under new US laws

That is until this week, when I stumbled upon an online spat between music industry expert Moses Avalon and BitTorrent/anti-piracy news website, TorrentFreak. You’ll have to read my news article, as well as Avalon’s blog and TorrentFreak’s response, to get the full picture, but to sum up, Avalon surmised, from the White House white paper, that pretty soon, P2P usage would be made a felony as well. From what I’ve read, and to be honest, I only skimmed as I usually do when I come across an opinion I don’t agree with, it seems Avalon is saying that P2P, the technology itself, would be illegal if the White House’s IP Czar had her way. I believe the only connection between the white paper, and P2P use in general, is that because P2P has an upload component, it *could* make BitTorrent transfers somewhat akin to streaming. However, and I think it’s fairly clear, that there is a huge difference between illegal use of a technology, and making that technology illegal. I don’t for one second think that technology like BitTorrent will be made illegal, because it would also make perfectly legal services, like Skype, Spotify, or even applications used by the US military today, illegal. BitTorrent is perfectly legal, under any law. What some people use it for though …

And as for why Avalon thinks TorrentFreak should be put on the banned website list, I have no idea. TF is a news and information website, much like what Digital Digest is pretending to be, and sure, it has a bias, but I think one would be hard pressed to find one website (especially a niche one) that doesn’t have a bit of a bias, including Avalon’s own website. Avalon refers to “P2P lifestyle”, for which he thinks TF promotes, and that this is the area in which the new proposed laws could see TF get banned, as TF “encourages” unsuspecting youth to lead a life of crime by downloading the latest Bieber hit. “P2P lifestyle” reminds me of the term “gangsta lifestyle”. There seems to be a lot of music these days that might be what one might believe to be promoting the “gangsta lifestyle”, something Avalon should surely know about working around the music industry (Nate Dogg R.I.P – Regulate In Peace!). Is Avalon saying that the government should ban music that could be seen as corrupting today’s youth (and yesterday’s youth too, considering gangsta rap’s long history)? If song lyrics which call for the assassination of police officers or the physical assault or even murder of other people are not illegal, then I’m pretty sure TF should be safe.

Pile of money

The first of many instalments that LimeWire has to pay to record labels, if they had their way in terms of damages payable

LimeWire’s troubles in the courts continues, as the music labels suing the defunct music file sharing network wants a potential $75 trillion dollars in damages, more money than the global music industry has ever made since recorded history began, and greater than the entire world’s combined GDP for a year. The judge presiding over the case has called it “absurd”, although to be fair to the record companies, they didn’t really ask for $75 trillion. It was just that the calculations they used to determine the billions in damages that do actually want is so flawed that, multiplying the amount they want per download, rather than per unique work, it does work out to be in the trillions, or at least several hundred billion. This again brings up the question of just how much money the industry is actually losing to piracy. I will cover this in more detail in a news article next week (I’m like that squirrel in that well known fable – I’m saving stuff for the “news winter”,  by saving some real news for next week when there might not be any real news), but it appears that since LimeWire’s shutdown, music piracy has decreased dramatically (and yes, I’m taking a huge personal risk by linking to notorious “P2P lifestyle” website, TorrentFreak – I’m calling my lawyer as I type), as expected. In fact, nearly half of Americans that pirated music have stopped doing so in the last quarter of 2010, largely thanks to the shut down of LimeWire (according to respected research group, NPD). So surely, this should lead to increased revenues, what with 12 million less music pirates in the US now? All we need now is the figure for increased revenue, divide that by the 12 million who stopped downloading, and then we can work out the real cost of piracy, per person. Of course, if revenue actually went down in the last quarter of 2010, then that could be a bit of a problem for the RIAA PR machine.

So if there was no significant revenue increase, or heaven forbid, that there was an actual decrease in revenue, then what does it mean? Another music industry and piracy expert, from the University of Queensland Australia, thinks that the solution to the piracy problem is for the music industry to compete with piracy. Reducing price and making content more available, and as easy to access as pirated downloads, say professor Stuart Cunningham, is the key. I’m not a university professor, as I barely have a bachelor’s degree, but I think this is what I’ve been saying for some time now and it’s good to hear someone who has read books and stuff to agree with me. To be honest, the piracy problem is so bad these days (I’m in total agreement with the entertainment industry on this point), that anything, *anything*, is worth a try. Even if it means having to let go of a century old business model. Cunningham also criticized the industry’s tendencies to over-exaggerate the financial toll of piracy (and this was before the “LimeWire $75 trillion” news story came out) – it’s good politics, but it doesn’t really solve any problems, and sometimes I think the industry doesn’t really want to solve the piracy problem, it only wants to be subsidized (via tax payer handouts and whatnot) for it. Or get some judge to give them $75 trillion.

In other unreported news (unreported on Digital Digest, that is), the Australian arm of the MPAA, the AFACT, is going all the way to the highest court in Australia (there I go, linking to TF again … I’ve just become a repeat offender!) to appeal two decisions so far that have seen it on the losing side of the legal battle with Australian ISP, iiNet, over the issue ISP issued infringement warnings.

Not much happening in the world of 3D, HD and Blu-ray. Is it me or is the 3D hype dying? The only news of note was one where Samsung I think producing an external 3D Blu-ray drive for the PC. Except that all Blu-ray drives are capable of playing 3D Blu-ray movies, and so really, the “3D Blu-ray” marketing here may be just in the software included, which is not even made by Samsung (it’s Cyberlink’s). The only hardware change I can figure may be the connection interface, maybe USB 3.0 instead of 2.0, but 2.0 should be more than enough for 3D Blu-ray’s requirement of 60 Mbps, considering 2.0 is rated for up to 480 Mbps (although real world performance is only a fraction of this, but 200 Mbps is still easily achievable). Any drive rated 2x or above for Blu-ray read speed should suffice for 3D Blu-ray. I guess the 3D hype isn’t dying yet when companies are still using it to promote products that aren’t really any different to its non 3D predecessor, at least in hardware.

Gaming

And finally, in gaming news, more PS3 jailbreak news this week as well known Android hacker Koushik Dutta turns down a Sony job offer to protest the company’s ill treatment of fellow hacker, George Hotz.

Sony’s R&D recruiter emailed Dutta with a Software Engineering job offer, but Dutta politely declined saying that he “could not in good conscience work at Sony”. It’s good to see someone with principles.

Dutta Sony job offer

Android hacker Koushik Dutta says no to Sony's job offer, to protest geohot's treatment

Sony, on the other hand, were busy trying to discredit geohot for taking a long planned vacation this week by accusing the hacker of trying to delay proceedings. Hotz is actually in South America, which sounds iffy, but he has clarified that the trip was long planned, and paid for using his own money, not that which has been donated to his fighting fund. He also assured Sony that he’s in contact with his lawyers.

One hack that may or may not make Sony mad is one demonstrated by Kinect hacker Shantanu Goel, when he demo’d running Kinect on the PS3, and using Microsoft’s controller-less motion gaming system to play Killzone 3. It’s all pre-alpha stuff, so things don’t work as well as expected, but it’s still interesting to see in action (YouTube video of the hack in action here). Why did I say it would make Sony mad? Well, what doesn’t, these days.

Best of all, the hack is open source, so anyone with Kinect and a PS3 can try it out for themselves.

Alright, that’s enough writing for this week. Have a good one!