Category: technology

Microsoft to Customers: Drop Dead, DRM Edition

No Comments

Once upon a time, there was a company called Microsoft, and it was a bad company.

One day, they created a music shop, called MSN music, which was even worse.

Then the bad people at Microsoft created the the Zune* store, anddecided to Dump MSN Music.

So, effective August 31, 2008, Microsoft is pulling the DRM keys on the music:

MSN Entertainment and Video Services general manager Rob Bennett sent out an e-mail this afternoon to customers, advising them to make any and all authorizations or deauthorizations before August 31. “As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers,” reads the e-mail seen by Ars. “You will need to obtain a license key for each of your songs downloaded from MSN Music on any new computer, and you must do so before August 31, 2008. If you attempt to transfer your songs to additional computers after August 31, 2008, those songs will not successfully play.”

This doesn’t just apply to the five different computers that PlaysForSure allows users to authorize, it also applies to operating systems on the same machine (users need to reauthorize a machine after they upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista, for example). Once September rolls around, users are committed to whatever five machines they may have authorized—along with whatever OS they are running.

So you bought it, you paid† for it, and now you have nothing.

This isn’t just Microflaccid, this is what the music and movie industries want to be their business model.

You buy the music, and then they change the rules, and make you buy it again.

*Yes, this was bad too.
†And probably overpaid for it.

Airbus Has a Neat Concept, but a Bogus Patent

No Comments

Airbus has filed a patent for what it considers an innovative trijet design.

What they are arguing is that three smaller engines will weigh less than two larger ones, that the noise from the third engine will be mitigated by the “trough” created by the tail configuration, and that the smaller engines will allow a shorter and lighter landing gear.

I don’t think that it’s going anywhere, because the two jet/three jet question has been answered now for some time, the additional maintenance, etc. just ain’t worth it.

As to the supposedly innovative idea of using the tail to mask the signature of rear mounted engines:

It’s been around for a while.

B-2s Back in Air

No Comments

B-2 Bombers are flying again after their “safety pause” (let’s not call it a grounding).

Also, according to Aviation Week, while grounded, orders went out for an undisclosed component to be inspected, which is believed to be a part of the flight control system.

It could be an air data sensor, or an actuator, or something in the stabilization augmentation system, or pretty much any sensor or actuator in the flight controls, but my guess (and my record on this sucks just as badly as everything else) is something in the fuel system associated with center of gravity management.

Thielert’s Troubles: Criminal Investigations, and a Cash Crunch

No Comments

There are maybe one of two of you out there who recall a couple of posts (here and here) just under a year ago about Thielert, a company that seemed to be on the verge of “great things” with its line of turbocharged diesel commercial aircraft engines.

While the tech might still be first rate, and it does sound so, the company appears to be in serious financial, and possibly legal, trouble.

It appears that the company may be very near insolvency, either through booking non existent orders to puffing up the balance sheet, or through customers who are seriously late in making payments for products that are already shipped.

My money is on the second, as two (perhaps all) of the management board have been dismissed by the board of directors.

It’s a pity. It’s nice well developed tech.

Senator, You are a Clueless Jerk, the Not-Lieberman Edition

No Comments

It’s not Lieberman, but it should come as no surprise that I am referring to the distinguished gentleman from Delaware, Joseph Biden….What the heck is it with Senators named “Joe”?

A prominent Senate Democrat on Wednesday said federal and local police should use custom software to monitor peer-to-peer networks for illegal activity, and he wants to spend $1 billion in tax dollars to help make that happen.

Of course, you have the obligatory screaming about Child Pr0n and terrorism, but it’s really about donations from the RIAA and the MPAA.

Additionally, the tracking method proposed, using MAC addresses, is fairly easily spoofed.

Moron.

A plea to both campaigns: Please do not select this blithering idiot as your Vice Presidential running mate.

OK, I Think That This is Wicked Neat

No Comments

But I’m an engineer, so a lot of the rest of you may not understand why I think that the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) diamond coatings on tools is neat.

It’s been “just around the corner” for some time, and the fact that we are seeing a commercial application (F-35 wing skin cutting), with tool life increasing by a factor of is interesting.

I’m wondering if we’re going to start seeing CVD diamond on heat sinks, as it’s the most thermally conductive substance on earth.

Pearls Without Swine

No Comments

In the world of neat stuff for the tech geek, we have an entry from the folks at the University of Dayton Research Institute, who have developed a technique to apply layers of ceramics to metal in the same manner as an oyster creates a pearl.

While ceramic coatings are fairly common this is a room temperature normal atmospheric pressure process, and should be effective in reducing wear and corrosion.

It appears that this was driven by a better understanding of the lowly bivalve, which does not extract CaCO3 from seawater, but instead, “that oysters use blood cells to deposit crystals that form shell and pearl”.

Neat Tech: Satellite Swarms

No Comments

Basically, as opposed to launching one big satellite, like the one that the navy had to shoot down, you launch fractionated satellites, basically a cluster that orbit close to one another, and together provide the capabilities of a single larger satellite.

It means that a launch or satellite failure won’t remove the capability, though it may reduce performance somewhat.

The program is from DARPA, and it’s called “System F6” (future, flexible, fast, fractionated, free-flying spacecraft united by information exchange).

Why Yes, I did Work on This!

No Comments

I came across this article on the USMC putting prognostics on its vehicles, and it turns oout that it’s yet another field of study that I’ve applied my engineering skills to.

Specifically the Marines are installing the Embedded Platform Logistics System (EPLS), which works by determining the actual condition of the equipment, as opposed to implementing a fixed maintenance/replacement schedule by using sensors on the equipment and computer algorithms to determine when components are wearing out.

When I was working on the Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAAV), now called the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV), it was primarily on a prognostics demonstration for the landing craft.

It was a nice job, with a nice boss (Hi Dave), but it was the commute from hell (75 miles through the heart of DC), and the scope of the program was being increasingly reduced, and I figured that it was not too long before I would be de-scoped, so I found something with what was then United Defense.

787 Needs Wing Box Design

No Comments

So, the latest update on Boeings increasingly delayed 787 has us seeing that Boeing and partner Fuji heavy industries will have to redesign the center wing box, because it is too weak.

Boeing’s delays on the 787 now rival that of Airbus on the A380, only once the problems with the European super jumbo came out, the all came out, and we are still getting this drip, drip, drip of bad news from Seattle Chicago.

This is yet another reason why the Boeing wonks who suggest that the 787 should have been used instead of the 767 are full of it, BTW.

The USAF needs its tanker sooner, rather than later.

Israel’s Newest F-16s Grounded on Formaldehyde Concerns

No Comments

High levels of Formaldehyde have been found in the cockpits’ of F-16I’ss.

The F-16 I (see picture below), is a variant unique to the IAF, with conformal tanks and a spine for additional avionics, and given the IAF’s specific needs, it likely has an air conditioning system tailored to this equipment, which is likely the source of the contamination.

It could come from combustion, but the path from combustor to cockpit would be unlikely.

Best Telecommunications Regulation Joke Ever!

No Comments

Courtesy of Harold Feld’s Tales of the Sausage Factory

The intervention of the Jewish holiday of Purim, which is celebrated by getting drunk until you cannot tell the difference between Verizon winning the C Block and Google winning the C Block, kept me from posting sooner.

OK, there aren’t that many great telecommunications regulations jokes, but still, this is really funny….If you are Jewish…..and if you have been following the FCC’s C Block auction.

OK, it’s a limited audience….but I find it funny, OK?

Verizon Big Winner in 700 Mhz Auctions

No Comments

No Google, though I think that the Goog was playing to lose, they just wanted to ensure open access on part of the spectrum.

The auctions were quite successful, with the exception of the “D Block”, the which was supposed to cover emergency first responders too, which is now under a corruption investigation as to whether Morgan OBrien and Cyren Call, who vetted the bids, were self dealing. (The answer is pretty clearly, “yes”)

FCC Forbids Exclusive Telco Deals With Apartments

No Comments

This is the correct decision, which is why I’m surprised that the FCC made it:

Regulators on Wednesday unanimously approved a rule banning exclusive telephone service agreements in apartment buildings, giving tenants their pick of providers.

The five-member Federal Communications Commission said in a release that exclusive contracts between carriers and apartment-building owners “hurt consumers and harm competition, with little evidence of countervailing benefits.” It noted that the deals have also blocked residents from getting bundled voice, video and high-speed Internet service packages.

…