Democratization of media, digital tools, media

Friday, October 24, 2003

Photoshop for the Camera Phone

Here's a pretty swanky server-based image manipulation tool designed for photoshop-style image manipulation of (primarily) camera phone images. It is still in the pre-production stage (assumably that means it works, but hasn't been cleanly integrated into the morass that is MMS image standards), but a cool idea nonetheless.

Similarly, Scalado's PhotoFusion has an image manipulation app that runs on some nokia cell phones.

I'm still not completely on-board with the camera phone combination. Too many compromises in both devices (the phone must be bigger and have less battery life because of the color screen - the camera must have low quality imaging to reduce cost of goods and bandwidth usage). Of course I'm hoping that someone at Philips USA will come across with a Philips KEY010 camera (1.3Mpixel, USB flashmemory in a key fob form factor) .

posted at 3:17 pm

Wednesday, October 8, 2003

Magnatune - Not Evil

Magnatune streams much of their music (in shoutcast's non-proprietary streaming MP3 format no less), charge $5.00 for albums and split the profits 50/50 with their artists (who keep all rights). Sure, they don't have the marketing money to purchase commercial radio airplay, but who cares, corporate FM radio is awful anyway.

We're a record label. But we're not evil, We call it "try before you buy." It's the shareware model applied to music. Listen to hundreds of MP3'd albums from our artists. Or try our genre-based radio stations. If you like what you hear, buy our music online for as little as $5 an album or license our music for commercial use. Artists get a full 50% of the purchase price. And unlike most record labels, our artists keep the rights to their music. Founded by musicians, for musicians. No major label connections. We are not evil.

Their electronica and world beat channels are quite good. Their metal is very... metal.

posted at 8:42 am

Friday, October 3, 2003

EFF on the Computer Owner as Adversary

The EFF has published a substatial review of Microsoft's Trusted Computing Initiative (originally called Palladium and now referred to as the Microsoft Next-Generation Secure Computing Base, or NGSCB).

They talk about the various components of NGSCB, it's current status in the marketplace, but then get to the heart of the matter. "Trusted Computing" as implemented trusts Microsoft and it's licensees but it does not trust the owner of the computer. The Remote Attestation feature that allows software and hardware vendors to be sure that software on your PC hasn't been infected by a virus is unavailable to you, the owner. It is impossible for you, the owner of the hardware to actually certify the correct operation of your own PC.

Imagine the car industry with similar constraints - you'd have to go to the dealer for every single operation that modified the equipment... Burned out turn signal? - $75, low tire pressure - $50. Forget about aftermarket stereos, fog lights or seat covers - they'll all prevent your car from starting at all.

EFF's solution for this disfunction is obvious and critical - Owner Override. This simple fix would allow the owner of a peice of hardware to attest that their machine is working correctly.

Owner Override removes the toolbox that allows the trusted computing architecture to be abused for anti-interoperability and anti-competitive purposes. It restores the important ability to reverse engineer computer programs to promote interoperability between them. Broadly, it fixes trusted computing so that it protects the computer owner and authorized users against attacks, without limiting the computer owner's authority to decide precisely which policies should be enforced. It does so without undermining any benefit claimed for the TCG architecture or showcased in Microsoft's public NGSCB demonstration. And it is consistent with TCG's and most vendors' statements about the goals of trusted computing.

posted at 3:07 pm