I’ve recently been in the market for decent quality webcams so I picked up Logitech’s QuickCam Pro 5000. The webcam is a small spherical object with a bendable tail that allows you to secure it to a laptop or CRT or sit it on your desk.

I’m using Windows XP, and the software was easy to install, although you will need an internet connection to download the updated software through the Logitech website. Once the software has downloaded, the install wizard will prompt you to hook up the camera via USB when the software has installed.

I’m upgrading from a really cheap webcam that I think I got free when I signed up for Verizon DSL years ago, so the first thing I noticed was how great the video quality was comparably. The pictures are sharp and the camera is pretty good at adjusting the picture brightness accordingly in dim and back lit rooms. In addition, the built in microphone actually dulls background noise so you don’t get echoes and other nuisances when chatting.

As an added bonus, the webcam’s software technology is built to focus on your facial expressions - it will actually transfer your facial features to animated avatars like a 3D shark so if you smile, the shark will look like its smiling. It’s cute and somewhat entertaining for a few minutes.

The biggest issue I had with the webcam was there’s no manual focus, which is odd because there was with the previous model, QuickCam Pro 4000. I recently bought software that will help me catalog my book/dvd/music collection and one of its perks is that you can use a webcam to scan barcodes into the software so no manual typing. The software actually recommended the QuickCam Pro 4000 to do this, so I thought the newer model would also allow this.

Unfortunately, the QuickCam Pro 5000 is awful at focusing on anything close and there’s no way to manually adjust focus so this camera is pretty much useless for anything along those lines. Don’t bother trying to show the person on the other end anything text oriented like the back cover of a book or a printed document because the camera just won’t focus on it. It’s even worse if your printed text is on a white background as whites look horribly washed out in bright light and you can’t read them in dim light.

Overall, this is a decent webcam that is a good choice for those who want to chat with others via the web or skype. It’s not so good if you need to focus on anything close like text.

This is a major advancement in robotics because it’s the first 2 winged robot built to such a small scale that it can pass as a real fly but there are still some challenges.

At the moment, Wood’s fly is limited by a tether that keeps it moving in a straight, upward direction. The researchers are currently working on a flight controller so that the robot can move in different directions.

The researchers are also working on an onboard power source. (At the moment, the robotic fly is powered externally.) Wood says that a scaled-down lithium-polymer battery would provide less than five minutes of flying time.

Tiny, lightweight sensors need to be integrated as well. Chemical sensors could be used, for example, to detect toxic substances in hazardous areas so that people can go into the area with the appropriate safety gear. Wood and his colleagues will also need to develop software routines for the fly so that it will be able to avoid obstacles.

So it still seems to have a ways to go before it can be used practically. Still, once engineers figure out how to overcome these challenges, let’s hope this doesn’t go on sale to the general public! Can you imagine the late night infomercials telling you how this invention can catch your cheating spouse in action or record or sit in on your competitor’s business meetings?

Pearl Jam has always been outspoken politically, so it’s no surprise that they were critical of George Bush during a Lollapalooza broadcast. When AT&T censored the lyrics “George Bush, leave this world alone” and “George Bush find yourself another home”, Pearl Jam posted to their website in protest. Here’s the YouTube video:

Apparently this wasn’t an isolated incident and Pearl Jam’s anti-Bush comments weren’t the only political comments ATT has censored. Over at Wired Blogs, a company spokesman admitted they’ve censored others in the past.

It’s not our intent to edit political comments in webcasts on attblueroom.com. Unfortunately, it has happened in the past in a handful of cases. We have taken steps to ensure that it won’t happen again.

So much for their previous statements on not filtering information.

Lawrence Lessig has chimed in with a good commentary on how the incident applies to network neutrality. He hopes this event can be a rallying cry for net neutrality advocates to speak up again.

DVD publishers add DRM to their movie releases so they can control whether the dvds can be copied and even what devices are allowed to play the dvds. In February 2007, Arnezami, a hacker on the Doom9 forum who was frustrated because his purchased HD-DVD movies wouldn’t play on his Linux-based computer (I believe), cracked the code and published the 128-bit number on the web. The Wired blog wrote up an article about what that meant for the future of DRM.

The AACS Licensing Authority recently took a stand against those who published the number on the web and set out a bunch of legal threats. In protest, Digg users began voting for sites that contained links to the crack.

The Digg staff, who had received one of these legal threats, decided to comply with the law and removed several links to pages with the published code. Digg users got mad and started a massive campaign to get every link on Digg’s front page to point to sites linking to the code. Eventually, Digg founder, Kevin Rose gave up the fight against its community members and posted his comments on the Digg blog.

So what’s the issue at stake here? Why all the fuss? First off, the AACS Licensing Authority isn’t trying to copyright a 128-bit number, like many sites proclaimed. (For an interesting legal perspective on if you can actually copyright a number, see Ben Manevitz’s post, You CAN Copyright a Number. But Not As Such.) They are simply claiming that the key violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)’s ban on any “component” or “part” of a “technology” that circumvents AACS, according to Fred von Lohmann of the EFF in a great legal primer on the issue.

And the user revolt hasn’t deterred Michael Ayers, the chairman of the AACS-LA, from threatening to go after all the sites that have published the code.

In all of this, there’s been talk about what this means - and a number of sites have cropped up poking fun at the issue. One of the more imaginative sites explains how you can get your own 128 bit number that you can claim violates your rights via the DMCA. The idea is that you can publish your own copyrighted stuff and then encrypt it with your own 128-bit number. Thus, if anyone attempts to publish that number, you can sue them (or at least threaten them) just as the AACS Licensing Authority.

And of course, it proves that Digg users wield a heck of a lot of power over the website.

But Viacom wasn’t the first company to sue YouTube. There’s also a much smaller lawsuit involving Robert Tur, a LA news reporter who sued for copyright infringement. NBC Universal and Viacom just recently asked the US District Court in LA that they be allowed to file a friends-of-the court brief. The thought is that this case will be tried before the Viacom case and could set precedent for how the Viacom case plays out in court.

Next, the Premier League (the UK soccer league) sued YouTube for copyright infringement, apparently claiming that YouTube encourages copyright infringement and doesn’t pay copyright owners. They also have a class action suit site up for anyone else who feels YouTube violated their copyright and wants to get in on the settlement (if there is one).

Finally, Thailand is also taking YouTube to court because they hosted a video that many Thais felt insulted their king. At the heart of the case is whether Google lied about not being able to stop the video clip last month that ridiculed Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

At least Google has the cash to fight back. In the copyright infringement cases, it’s likely that Google’s response will be similar to the Viacom one. I’m not entirely sure how it will respond to the Thailand claim which wants YouTube to censor inappropriate content.

If I understand the complaint, Thailand has blocked the site since April 4 because YouTube didn’t take the clip down. According to this BBC article, eventually YouTube did cave to censorship and removed the clip. While I’m not sure exactly what the clip was about but a search on YouTube shows a number of derogatory videos still up about the Thai King. Are they looking to have YouTube ban each one? Will they provide a list of “inappropriate content” and hope Google caters to their demands? I guess we’ll see…

Here’s the chart Charlene Li posted on her blog. The rungs at the top of the ladder indicate a higher level of participation.

Like the Pew study, the Forrester study places those who engage with blogging and video creation as the high end of the tech spectrum, though here, they’re at 13% vs the 8% in the Pew study.

Of those Elite Tech Users, 8% are avid Web 2.0 devotees. This group is far more likely to own a digital or video camera, a web cam, and an iPod/MP3 player than the rest of the groups. They also are more likely to create and engage with video content. Nearly all (97%) have broadband connections at home or work. Not surprisingly, most are young - the median age is 28 - ethicnically diverse, and are mostly male (70%).

In contrast, the least connected group is more likely to watch TV every day and have cable or satellite service. This group is the oldest - median age is 64 - and they report the lowest levels of household income. They are more likely to be women (57%). Three quarters are white and 18% are African American.

I can’t say I’m surprised that young people are more likely to actively engage with online technology and have made it part of their lives while older people tend to prefer to do things they way they’ve always done… I wonder, however, if it’s more of an educational thing - people would like to learn more about technology but don’t have the time/resources to do so - or simply a matter of preference - ie they’re more efficient without technology.

When referring to the case, an eBay spokesperson stated the obvious

“What the case highlights is the importance that people need to place in choosing a sensible password,”

What exactly makes for a good password? I read an article once (can’t remember where) that said to do the following:

1. Think of your favorite phrase, quote, or song lyric that’s at least 8 words long.
2. Take the first letter of each word.
3. Substitute numbers for letters.

The example I remember was a Dr. Seuss quote, so I’ll use an Animaniacs spin-off of Green Eggs and Ham:

1. Phrase: “I does not like gold eggs and meat.”
2. Take the first letters of the phrase: idnlgeam
3. Now, substitute some numbers for letters.”i” and “l” kind of look like “1″ and “e” looks like a backwards “3″ so “1dn1g3am”.

The system has been working for me - and since I create my password from scratch with a meaning behind it, I have a greater tendency to remember it.

Is there another solution? I read a few months back that eBay (or, at least, Paypal) was looking into implementig security keys.GearFuse.com posted a picture of these security devices, which generate unique keys every 30 seconds. Users must type in that unique key along with their username and password.

It sounds like a pain to use, but perhaps something like that would reduce the number of phishing scams. If scammers need your randomly generated security key along with your username and password, that may make the stolen data more difficult to use.

To test her theory, she created a game based on scenes from Duke Nukem. In it, players were to navigate through a virtual town, which they were already familiar with, and find various landmarks.

Players who weren’t depressed found an average of 3.8 locations while depressed people only found an average of 2.4 locations. And the more depressed a person was, the lower their score was.

In another interesting study last month, researchers at the University of Rochester found that people who pay action video games (specifically Unreal Tournament) for a few hours each day for a month can improve how they do on eye examinations by about 20%! Sadly, those playing Tetris didn’t see any improvement.

“Action video game play changes the way our brains process visual information,” says Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences.

“These games push the human visual system to the limits and the brain adapts to it,” Bavelier adds. “That learning carries over into other activities and possibly everyday life.”

Perhaps Blu-Ray will win the DVD wars - I mentioned awhile back that I was siding with Blu-Ray - but it seems a bit enthusiastic to say that within three years, even normal DVDs will no longer be in use.

Still, according to NewsFactor, Blu-Ray discs outsold HD-DVDs two-to-one during the first two months of 2007, and The Departed (great movie, btw!) sold 20,000 Blu-Ray discs to 13,000 HD-DVDs, so the initial numbers seem to favor Blu-Ray.

Unfortunately, I haven’t yet purchased my Playstation 3 so I have not yet been able to evaluate Blu-Ray’s quality. After realizing there was no way I was willing to pay ridiculous prices around Christmas time, I broke down and purchased a Samsung LNS3241D 32″ HDTV instead. I’ve been waiting patiently for PS3s to become more readily available ever since.