Quotulatiousness

July 7, 2012

Tim Worstall: the software patent system is FUBAR’ed

Filed under: Business, Law, Technology — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:05

In Forbes, Tim Worstall explains the odd situation of Amazon trying to obtain patents to use defensively when (not if) they get sued for entering the smartphone market:

… Amazon isn’t searching out patents which would allow it to build phones to, say, the GSM or CDMA standards. For those patents, by virtue of being included in those standards, must be made available to all comers on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms (RAND, or Europeans add “Fair” to the beginning to give FRAND). So any patent that is actually necessary to make a phone that interacts with the network is already available to them on exactly the same terms that Samsung, Apple, Nokia or anyone else pays for them.

No, what Amazon is looking for is just some bundle of patents, somewhere, that have something to do with mobile telephony. So that when (and sadly, it really is when, not if) they get sued by someone or other for breaching a patent then they’ve got some great big bundle of documents that they can wave back at them. Such patents can range from the possibly valid (slide to unlock perhaps) through to two that really irk me: Apple claiming a patent on a wedge shaped notebook and, unbelievably to me, on the layout of icons on the Galaxy Tablet in Europe.

I take this to be evidence that the technology patent system has simply got out of hand: that the system is entirely Fubar in fact. We need to recall what a patent is supposed to do: it is not that intellectual property is some God given right. Rather, we realise that given that ideas and technologies are public goods it is very difficult to make money out of having invented them. Thus we artificially create intellectual property in the form of patents and trademarks. But we are always walking a narrow line between encouraging invention by awarding such rights and discouraging derivative inventions by awarding rights that are too strong.

July 6, 2012

This might be damage that even the Internet can’t route around

Filed under: Law, Liberty, Media, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:50

Tim Worstall on the worst-case interpretation of a recent legal decision in the US courts:

… we now have a ruling that websites are a place of public accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act. If this ruling holds then this really will break the internet and web as we have come to know it.

The case is discussed here.

    The case involves a Cyberlaw perennial: are websites obligated to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (the ADA)? In this case, the desired accommodation is close-captioning for Netflix-streamed video. If websites must comply with the ADA, all hell will break loose. Could YouTube be obligated to close-caption videos on the site? (This case seems to leave that door open.) Could every website using Flash have to redesign their sites for browsers that read the screen? I’m not creative enough to think of all the implications, but I can assure you that ADA plaintiffs’ lawyers will have a long checklist of items worth suing over. Big companies may be able to afford the compliance and litigation costs, but the entry costs for new market participants could easily reach prohibitive levels.

[. . .]

The place of publication is where the reader is, where the browser through which the site is being viewed. Thus would mean that any foreign website which an American might want to read (say, my personal blog) would become subject to the rules and restrictions of the ADA. And believe me, the 6.7 billion people who are not Americans are not going to put up with that. We might all ignore the law, or we might try and ban access from the US (or more alarmingly, ISPs might be told to do so). Or possibly be subject to the tender ministrations of an ambulance chasing lawyer.

If it’s being “rebuilt” to a different design, with different materials, it’s not the same Bluenose

Filed under: Cancon, History, Technology, Woodworking — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:43

Wooden sailing ships are subject to far more wear and tear than modern vessels: they’re like the old tale of the farmer’s axe (even though everything’s been replaced over time, it’s still the same axe). This means that heritage sailing ships need lots of careful maintenance throughout their lives, and major re-builds at long intervals. In the case of Nova Scotia’s iconic Bluenose II, however, it’s sometimes more than a “rebuild”:

She is a celebrity, immortalized on the back of our dime and presently parked beneath a big white tent in the Lunenburg Shipyard, awaiting finishing touches and the order to set sail.

Built in 1963, Bluenose II was effectively scrapped in the fall of 2010. A small percentage of the old boat, including the sails and masts and some of the mahogany and walnut from the hull, were saved for use in the rebuild. The bow-to-stern reconstruction had the legend at points looking more like a whale skeleton beached on the Lunenburg wharf, with her ribs exposed for all to see.

Some purists, including Ms. Roué, a great-granddaughter of William J. Roué — the naval architect responsible for designing the original Bluenose, which launched in 1921 and achieved lasting fame by hauling in massive catches on the Grand Banks and beating American schooners in ocean races — view the “restoration” tag as a semantic stretch.

They see it as a sham concealing the fact the boat being built and expected to launch this summer under the Bluenose II banner was not built according to Mr. Roué’s original designs. It is not the Bluenose II but a new boat altogether.

You could make the case that this is merely a look-alike, rather than a replica. In fact you’d pretty much have to say that:

The original Bluenose was made from Nova Scotia oak, while its second incarnation blended local and South American oaks.

The latest edition consists of laminated angelique, a bulletproof teak from South America. Meanwhile the engine bed, stern frame, floors and fasteners holding the whole shebang together are steel, where once they were wood.

Any boat, especially a boat named Bluenose, is more than the materials it is made of or the sum of its designs. It is a piece of living history and its identity derives from the stories attached to it and in the recollections of those that sailed aboard her, some accounted for, others lost at sea.

So, just to sum up: she’s being built to a different design (even though outward appearance is much the same), using different materials. In what way can you call her the same ship? The point made in the article, that the masts and sails were some of the “originals” being re-used is odd: those are among the parts that need replacing more often. And the mahogany and walnut saved from the last boat are almost certainly decorative elements, not structural ones.

July 5, 2012

What do software developers and predatory bankers have in common?

Filed under: Business, Technology — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:02

In his regular column at The Register, Matt Asay points out that using another company’s API can be a quick and easy way to get going, but it carries significant risks:

In tech today, it has become a truism that “if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product”. Somehow we have applied this wisdom to consumers without recognising that the same principle applies to enterprises and their developers. Recently, however, Netflix and LinkedIn have reminded us just how precarious it is to build on someone else’s platform — or API.

Paul Graham, one of the founders of Y Combinator, has described APIs as “self-serve [business development]”. It’s a great story: open and document your API and watch a thousand businesses bloom, bringing you cash and legitimacy. All of which may be true, if done correctly.

But the other side of Graham’s “business development” is the difficulty of predicting the business planning on the other side of the API. Twitter was pretty free with API access in its early days when it was seeking adoption rather than income. Now that the company has grown up and continues to tighten its grip on how and where users interact with tweets, Twitter terminated its tweet syndication partnership with LinkedIn and has promised to clamp down even more tightly on how developers use its API. Twitter is doing this because it can, as professor Joel West points out, but also because it must: its advertising business depends upon it.

So where’s the banking similarity come in?

There’s one other thing to consider, as venture capitalist Bill Davidow opines in The Atlantic, and that is the very real possibility that this API mercantilism is a sign of how the technology world is changing, and not for the better:

    At both Hewlett-Packard and Intel, where I next worked, money was important — but it wasn’t the top priority. The goal was to do the right thing and do it well. If you did that, over time, rewards followed and shareholders supported your efforts…

    Many other things have changed in the valley over the past five decades. I’ve become increasingly concerned about one thing that is seldom discussed: the valley is no longer as concerned about serving the customer, and even sees great opportunity in exploitation. We are beginning to act like the bankers who sold subprime mortgages to naïve consumers…

Or sold developers subprime APIs?

Cisco “updates” consumer routers to allow tracking of internet usage, automatic bricking for terms & conditions violations

Filed under: Law, Liberty, Technology — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:08

If you have a modern Cisco or LinkSys router on your home network, you may have just given up a significant amount in the last “update” the company distributed. ESR has the details:

For those of you who have missed the news, last a few days Cisco pushed a firmware update to several of its most popular routers that bricked the device unless you signed up for Cisco’s “cloud” service. To sign up, you had to agree to the following restrictions:

    When you use the Service, we may keep track of certain information related to your use of the Service, including but not limited to the status and health of your network and networked products; which apps relating to the Service you are using; which features you are using within the Service infrastructure; network traffic (e.g., megabytes per hour); internet history; how frequently you encounter errors on the Service system and other related information (“Other Information”).

So in order to continue using the hardware you bought and paid for and own, you have to agree to let Cisco snoop your browser history and monitor your traffic — a clickstream they would of course instantly turn around and sell to advertising agencies and other snoops. Those terms are so loose (“including but not limited to”) that they could legally read your email and sell that data too.

Disgusted enough yet? Wait, it gets better. The cloud terms of service also includes this gem:

    You agree not to use or permit the use of the Service: (i) to invade another’s privacy; (ii) for obscene, pornographic, or offensive purposes; (iii) to infringe another’s rights, including but not limited to any intellectual property rights; (iv) to upload, email or otherwise transmit or make available any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, promotional materials, spam, junk mail or any other form of solicitation; (v) to transmit or otherwise make available any code or virus, or perform any activity, that could harm or interfere with any device, software, network or service (including this Service); or (vi) to violate, or encourage any conduct that would violate any applicable law or regulation or give rise to civil or criminal liability.

Translated out of lawyerese, this gives Cisco the right to brick your router if you use it to view anything Cisco considers pornography, or do anything that it might consider IP theft — like, say, bit-torrenting a movie. Or even if you send anything it considers unsolicited advertising — which doesn’t have to mean bulk spam, see “any other form of solicitation”?

The sum of these paragraphs is: “We control your digital life. We can spy on you, we can filter your traffic, we can cut off your net access unilaterally if you do anything we don’t like, and you have no recourse.”

The idea of replacing your router with one that can load and run an open source rather than proprietary system just became a lot more enticing (such things do already exist, although not for all routers).

July 4, 2012

Canada’s new Cyclone helicopters — already 4 years late — may not arrive for another 5 years

Filed under: Cancon, Military, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:32

Greg Weston reports for CBC News:

Canada’s long-promised fleet of new Sikorsky naval helicopters, already four years late and $300 million over budget, likely won’t be delivered and ready for combat for up to another five years, informed industry sources tell CBC News.

Last month, Connecticut-based Sikorsky missed its latest contract deadline to finish delivering 28 sleek, state-of-the-art Cyclone maritime helicopters to replace Canada’s aged fleet of increasingly unreliable Sea Kings, now nearing 50 years old.

In fact, delivery of the new choppers hasn’t even started.

[. . .]

As of last month, Sikorsky had only provided a couple of prototypes that have no military mission systems, and aren’t certified to fly over water or at night.

The two helicopters apparently spend most of their time on the tarmac at Shearwater Heliport at CFB Halifax as “training aids” for ground mechanics.

The machines are so incomplete the Canadian government refuses to accept them as an official delivery of anything in the contract.

What is it about helicopters in particular that makes it so difficult and so expensive for the Canadian government to acquire? Here’s the sad chronology:

  • In 1963, the CH-124 Sea King helicopter (a variant of the US Navy S-61 model) entered service with the Royal Canadian Navy.
  • In 1983, the Trudeau government started a process to replace the Sea Kings. That process never got far enough for a replacement helicopter to be ordered.
  • In 1985, the Mulroney government started a new process to find a replacement for the Sea Kings.
  • In 1992, the Mulroney government placed an order for 50 EH-101 Cormorant helicopters (for both naval and search-and-rescue operations).
  • In 1993, the Campbell government reduced the order from 50 to 43, theoretically saving $1.4B.
  • In 1993, the new Chrétien government cancelled the “Cadillac” helicopters as being far too expensive and started a new process to identify the right helicopters to buy. The government had to pay nearly $500 million in cancellation penalties.
  • In 1998, having split the plan into separate orders for naval and SAR helicopters, the government ended up buying 15 Cormorant SAR helicopters anyway — and the per-unit prices had risen in the intervening time.
  • In 2004, the Martin government placed an order with Sikorsky for 28 CH-148 Cyclone helicopters to be delivered starting in 2008 (after very carefully arranging the specifications to exclude the Cormorant from the competition).
  • Now, in 2012, we may still have another five years to wait for the delivery of the Cyclones.

Update: In the National Post, Kelly McParland tries to draw some useful conclusions from the longest-running Canadian comedy act:

If there is a solution to this farce it’s not easily identified. Canada desperately needs the helicopters and it is far too late to return once again to the drawing board. The blame is so widespread that politicians barely bother to bestir themselves to try: if Jean Chretien’s government hadn’t maliciously cancelled Brian Mulroney’s original 1992 purchase, a full decade might have been cut from the script, but there is no guarantee other mishaps wouldn’t have occurred. Ottawa’s only option now is to hound Connecticut-based Sikorsky relentlessly and mercilessly, recover every cent possible for its repeated failure to live up to its promises, and accept nothing less than full compliance with its contracted responsibilities.

The greater lesson lies in the nether world that surrounds military procurement. It’s a world where no promise can be accepted as reliable, no cost guarantee assumed to be binding, no contract treated as worth the paper it’s written on. The federal Conservatives should think long and hard on the Sea King saga as they push ever deeper into their own purchase of new fighter jets, whether the F-35 or otherwise. Prime Minister Stephen Harper would be well-advised to abandon his usual aggressive approach and tread warily. The uncertain costs, the shifting due dates, the obdurate insistence of the military mandarins on having their way, the determined stonewalling of the politicians : it has all the identifying markings of a Sea King re-make.

Update the second: On Facebook, Damian Brooks suggests that Kelly McParland is only able to see the humour because he hasn’t been close enough to the situation: “I’d be curious to know if McParland’s ever flown in one of our Sea Kings, with tranny fluid dripping down the fuselage, practicing autorotations ad nauseum (literally). I suspect not. If he had, I have a feeling he’d find the situation much more disgraceful and much less funny.” He also posted a link to this:

July 3, 2012

US Army’s UCP camouflage pattern “makes soldiers more visible, not less”

Filed under: Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:06

As I mentioned briefly last week, the US Army is abandoning their most recent camouflage patterned combat uniforms:

The United States military is abandoning its recently-adopted pixelated camouflage uniforms, according to articles this week in The Daily as well as Stars and Stripes.

The drab grey digital pattern, known as the Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP), will be discarded after only eight years following mounting evidence that the colour scheme makes soldiers more visible, not less.

The articles pull few punches in their appraisal of the move to adopt the pattern in 2004.

“Army brass interfered in the selection process, choosing looks and politics over science,” reports Stars and Stripes, the official newspaper of the United States armed forces.

And while the Pentagon spent $5 Billion on the much-heralded uniforms, some of the earliest attempts to conceal soldiers on the battlefield were considerably less expensive.

The This is War blog has a discussion of the development of camouflage over the last century and a half.

June 29, 2012

US Army reluctantly admits USMC did better

Filed under: Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:06

In developing camouflage, that is:

The U.S. Army has decided to scrap its digital pattern camouflage combat uniforms for the more effective, but more expensive, MultiCam. In the last decade, both the army and marines adopted new, digital, camouflage pattern field uniforms. But in Afghanistan, U.S. soldiers noted that the marine digital uniforms (called MARPAT, for Marine Pattern) were superior to the army UCP (Universal Camouflage Pattern). There’s been growing dissatisfaction with UCP, and it has become a major issue because all the infantry have access to the Internet, where the constant clamor for something better than UCP forced the army to do something. This is ironic because UCP is a variant of MARPAT, but a poor one, at least according to soldiers who have encountered marines wearing MARPAT. Even more ironic is that MARPAT is based on research originally done by the army. Thus some of the resistance to copying MARPAT is admitting the marines took the same research on digital camouflage, and produced a superior pattern for combat uniforms.

A digital camouflage pattern uses “pixels” (little square or round spots of color, like you will find on your computer monitor if you look very closely), instead of just splotches of different colors. Naturally, this was called “digital camouflage.” This pattern proved considerably more effective at hiding troops than older methods. For example, in tests, it was found that soldiers wearing digital pattern uniforms were 50 percent more likely to escape detection by other troops, than if they were wearing standard green uniforms. What made the digital pattern work was the way the human brain processed information. The small “pixels” of color on the cloth makes the human brain see vegetation and terrain, not people. One could provide a more technical explanation, but the “brain processing” one pretty much says it all.

June 28, 2012

The US Air Force faces its toughest opponents: the lobbyists

Filed under: Military, Politics, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:54

In a stunning outbreak of common sense, the USAF cancelled an order for an expensive UAV because it wasn’t as effective at the intended task as other methods. Battle would soon be joined with the fearsome lobbyists and their congressional minions:

Earlier this year, the U.S. Air Force cancelled existing orders for the RQ-4 Global Hawk UAV and withdrew 18 from service. The Global Hawk manufacturer (Northrop Grumman) unleashed their lobbyists and political supporters on the air force, demanding an explanation for (and reversal of) the decision. The air force responded that the RQ-4 was too expensive and the manufacturer too unreliable. Moreover, reconnaissance mission requirements had changed with the withdrawal from Iraq. High altitude, long duration missions were not needed as much. And those that were needed were better served by using the smaller and cheaper Reaper. Missions normally carried out by the RQ-4 were now handled more efficiently and cheaply by the U-2, which could carry more sensors to higher altitudes. Northrop Grumman insisted it could mount any U-2 sensors on an RQ-4. The air force replied that this had not been their experience. Northrop Grumman would offer to make modification which often went way over budget, took longer than specified and often didn’t work. The air force had been burned once too often by Northrop Grumman when it came to upgrades and fixes on the RQ-4.

[. . .]

Increasingly over the last decade, the air force and the manufacturer of the RQ-4 found themselves feuding over design, cost, and quality control issues. The latest issue was the unreliability of the new Block 30 models. This renewed Department of Defense threats to cancel the program. But Northrop Grumman lobbyists have made sure the key members of Congress knew where Global Hawk components were being built and how many jobs that added up to. While that delayed the RQ-4 Block 30 cancellation it did not stop it. The air force was placated for a while when Northrop Grumman fixed some of the problems (some of which the manufacturer said don’t exist, or didn’t matter). The Block 30 was supposed to be good to go, but the air force was not convinced and decided that Block 30 was just more broken promises. Congress was also tired of all the feuding and being caught between Northrup lobbyists and exasperated air force generals. Then there was politician’s decision to cut the defense budget over the next decade. Something had to go.

Meanwhile, the manned U-2 has continued to operate as expected and, despite its age, with predictable costs. Moreover, the U-2 carries a larger load than the RQ-4 and that means it can do more when it is up there. The U-2 also has its supporters in Congress. So the RQ-4 took a hit so the popular U-2 could keep flying for another decade or so.

[. . .]

There has been plenty of competition for RQ-4 work. In addition to the manned U-2, there is a longer (42 hours) endurance version of the five ton Reaper as well as the jet powered version of the Reaper called Avenger. This aircraft can do 85 percent of what the RQ-4 can, but costs half as much. Moreover, the Avenger is 29 percent faster, although it only has endurance of 20 hours, compared to 35 for the RQ-4. Most importantly, the Avenger and Reaper come from a manufacturer (General Atomics) that has been much more dependable than Northrop Grumman.

June 27, 2012

The “JesusPhone” turns five

Filed under: Media, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:32

At The Register, Tony Smith looks back on five years of Apple’s iPhone phenomenon:

The iPhone first went on sale five years ago this week and it has already clocked up more than $150 billion in revenues — more than the annual GDP of Hungary — for Apple.

More than 250 million iPhones have been sold since 29 June 2007, the day over-the-counter sales began in the US, almost six months after its January 2007 launch.

That’s just the hardware, of course. Apple takes a 30 per cent cut of the purchase price of ever app downloaded through the iTunes App Store, and with well over 30 billion apps downloaded since the app shop went online on 10 July 2008.

[. . .]

The original iPhone, lest we forget, was a 2G device with GSM/Edge data connectivity. Its 16 bundled apps — it couldn’t run third-party native software, only JavaScript-coded “web apps” in its browser — ran on a 400MHz Samsung ARM11-based S3C6400 CPU and were presented on a 3.5in, 320 x 480 display.

There was no external storage — there still isn’t — and the battery was tightly integrated into the casing — it still is. It has a 2Mp camera and 4-16GB of on-board Flash storage.

But the iPhone introduced the world to smooth touchscreen operation, its capacitive panel outclassing the less sensitive resistive screens commonplace at the time. Likewise, it introduced roll, pitch and yaw detecting accelerometers, now found on every smartphone. Likewise Wi-Fi.

June 26, 2012

Railway engineering, 1947 style

Filed under: Britain, History, Railways, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:03

London, Midland & Scottish Railway documentary that shows the relaying of St. Pancras Junction with prefabricated trackwork, along with the associated changes to the signalling system.

What struck me while watching this was the ages of most of the track crew: I’d have expected them to be a bunch of teens-to-early 20’s guys, but there are a lot of old gaffers still doing the heavy lifting here. Oh, and of course the work clothes: caps, hats, jackets, and braces. Not a hard hat or much in the way of obvious safety gear in sight. They may or may not have been better men in those days, but they earned their aches and pains honestly.

H/T to Roger Henry for the link, who pointed out “This will get your pulses racing. Also makes you realize that working on the railroad was for real men. Mechanisation has come a looong way since then.”.

June 22, 2012

Microsoft Surface: “Lacking a physical product to test, all we can do is talk bollocks based on conjecture”

Filed under: Humour, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:09

While I’ve been avoiding tablet computers, having an actual keyboard that can attach to a tablet makes it more like something I might be able to find a use for. In The Register, Alistair Dabbs explains why he’s already very fond of the announced-but-not-available-yet Microsoft Surface:

I don’t wish to suggest that Microsoft Surface is truly vapourware, but surely it’s suspicious that it’s announcing a product that no one’s going to be able to buy for half a year.

One supposes that Microsoft intends to create a buzz and get us talking about their forthcoming (new) foray into tablet computers. Yet the problem with jumping the gun — apart from the ‘false start’ accusations that lead on from this metaphor — is that commentators are left with a void to fill. Lacking a physical product to test, all we can do is talk bollocks based on conjecture.

This, as you know, is my specialty.

First, let me say that I don’t care a hoot about the provenance of the name ‘Surface’ — ho-ho, it used to be a table, so fucking what? Making fun of a name tells us nothing about the product.

Take ‘Metro’.

“We call it Metro because it’s modern and clean.” Oh, and here’s me thinking they called it Metro because it’s populated by young Algerians brandishing flick-knives and smells of wee. It’s just a word to put on the packaging and its actual meaning has no significance. After all, what does the word ‘pod’ have to do with playing MP3 files?

June 21, 2012

Even Mother Jones is coming around on genetically modified crops

Filed under: Environment, Food, Science, Technology — Tags: — Nicholas @ 10:11

Sarah Zhang points out that people who want less damage to the environment should support GM technology in farming:

Genetically modified Bt crops get a pretty bad rap. The pest-killing Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) bacteria protein these plants are bioengineered to make has been accused of harming monarch butterflies, honey bees, rats, and showing up in the blood of pregnant women.

Just one problem: None of that is true. (Click on any of those links to see a scientific refutation of each claim.) Seven independent experts in genetically modified crops I spoke to all confirmed that the science shows Bt crops to be safer than their alternative: noxious chemical insecticides.

[. . .]

But just as we do not blame a murder on, say, a knife, Bt technology is not to blame for the ills of industrial agriculture. After all, knives are pretty handy in the kitchen when we use them properly. Even critics will acknowledge that Bt crops have led to a sharp decrease in insecticide use, which is a huge net positive for the environment. Broad spectrum chemical insecticides kill often and kill widely, wiping out “natural enemies” that are helpful pest-eating critters like spiders. A massive 20-year study just published in the journal Nature found that using Bt cotton in China to control cotton bollworms closely tracked with a rebound in natural enemy populations, which in turn keep out secondary pests like aphids that usually proliferate when chemical insecticides kill the bollworms.

If that last sentence sounds complicated, it is. Integrated pest management is about recognizing the interconnected complexity of these ecosystems of plants and all the insects living on them. The Nature study found that pest control through Bt cotton even had spillover benefits to the non-Bt soybeans growing around them. Natural enemies like ladybugs, spiders, and lacewings keep pests unaffected by Bt at bay. “Maintaining the biological control agents we already have is one of the cornerstones of integrated pest management,” says William Hutchison, an entomologist at the University of Minnesota. In addition, a 2010 study by Hutchison in Science (PDF) showed that American farmers of non-Bt corn actually reaped two-thirds of the economic benefit (read: additional profit) from nearby Bt-related pest suppression.

June 18, 2012

New proposal: HTTP Error Code 451 to indicated “content censored by authorities”

Filed under: Government, Law, Liberty, Media, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 14:04

Kevin Fogarty at PC World looks at a new HTTP error code proposal:

A high-profile Google developer has proposed that the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) that it endorse a new HTTP Status Code to warn readers the page they’re looking for has been censored by authorities, according to TheVerge.

Tim Bray, who co-invented XML and works as Android Developer Advocate at Google, is submitting a proposal that pages censored by someone other than the owner of the site or of the user’s local network display the error code “451 Unavailable for Legal Reasons.”

The number in the code is a reference to Ray Bradbury’s “Farenheit 451,” which describes a dystopian future in which book burnings and the censorship of unacceptable material is routine. Google already highlights search terms that may return censored results, in some countries.

Speculation on the intended mission of the X-37B

Filed under: China, Space, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:24

A blog post at New Scientist compares the achievement of the Chinese space program, which just successfully placed three astronauts aboard the ISS and the highly mysterious X-37B spaceplane which just completed a 469-day mission:

China’s space agency took the plaudits for successfully docking its crewed Shenzhou-9 spacecraft with its orbiting lab Tiangong-1 today, but the feat was slightly overshadowed by the weekend landing of the US X-37B spaceplane, which after a record-breaking orbital flight of 469 days showed just how far China has to go to catch up with advanced spacefaring nations.

At around noon local time, the Beijing Aerospace Control Centre relayed live pictures of Shenzhou-9’s docking on state broadcaster China Central Television. The space capsule held off at a distance of 62 kilometres from Tiangong-1 before making its docking approach just before 2pm — and once the crew had manually locked on to the latter’s cruciform docking target it took only eight minutes to latch the spacecraft together safely.

[. . .]

This Boeing-built spaceplane, roughly one quarter the size of the space shuttle, is equally mysterious. It flies to orbit on a regular rocket and when there deploys a solar array that gives its sensors the power they need for extended missions. It also has enough propellant to fire thrusters that make small changes to its orbit in a bid to foil surveillance. The vehicle re-enters the atmosphere just like the shuttle but lands entirely autonomously, making it a space drone.

At no point has the USAF revealed the craft’s purpose: in addition to spacecraft surveillance, it could deploy a robot that repairs (or disables) satellites in orbit, say some, while at the darker end of the spectrum of possibilities — it was a DARPA project in its early days — it could carry a warhead, using its drone homing capability to provide surprise precision strike from orbit.

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