WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week’s net, technology and science news
by Alan Lenton
This week’s offering takes a look at spies in the sky, Microsoft pay outs, Electronic Arts’ woes, a stardust video, computerized eyewear, the very first ‘C’ compiler, geek jewellery, and the UH-18SPW Hoverwing. URLs in the Scanner section will take you to Google’s attempt at an Amazon Prime killer, the Flyboard, Tibet’s Yarlung Tsangpo river, and details of Java’s security woes.
In the meantime, summer is over here in the UK - it was last Monday, when we had nearly a whole day of sunshine. It’s rained ever since... Not that I’m complaining, you understand, some years we don’t even get a day of sunshine. On the other hand, I suppose, it’s the rain that keeps this land ‘green and pleasant’, although William Blake might have been a little more accurate when he wrote ‘Jerusalem’, had the last line read, ‘In England’s green and soggy land.’
However, being intrepid, I did manage to squelch through the internet to bring you this week’s edition, and here it is...
Shorts:
The Register has a nifty little piece on the history of spies in the sky, starting 200 years or so ago with French Army balloons in 1794 - barely ten years after the first manned balloon flight by the Montgolfier brothers. WW I and WW II are both there, as is the infamous U2 spy plane, several of which the Soviet Union managed to shoot down with S-75 Dvina missiles. There’s a great picture of the U2’s successor, the Mach 3.3 SR-71, which looks fantastic.
After that the spies’ eyes went into orbit, and the Register’s story comes to a halt, since for obvious reasons, none of the users of satellite reconnaissance like to allow pictures of their hardware. Still worth taking a look, even if you’ve only a passing interesting in the early history of aerial reconnaissance.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/01/aerial_surveillance/
Back on the ground, I see that Microsoft is being hit by European fines and tax demands. First the EU has hit it with a 651 million Euro (US$731 million) fine for failing to give users a choice of browsers on newly installed versions of Windows. Microsoft promised to do this as part of an anti-trust settlement a few years back, and indeed complied for a while. Then came Windows 7 Service Pack 1, and the option to choose your browser vanished. Microsoft claimed not have noticed for 17 months. Pretty myopic, these Microsoft people...
The fine could have been for anything up to 10% of the company’s annual revenue, 7.4 billion Euros, which might have made something of a dent in even Microsoft’s cash pile, but the commission took into account Microsoft’s cooperation with the commission, and reduced the penalty. Pity, with a few decent fines of 10% of turnover, we European tax payers could have had a break from having to pay a bunch of unelected bureaucrats for the privilege of having them foist stupid regulations on us that damage our economy.
The other payment being demanded is from the Danish government, which is chasing Microsoft for a billion or so dollars in missing tax revenue, after Microsoft bought the Danish accounting firm Navision in 2002. The Danes, one of the EU’s higher tax countries, were not impressed by the subsequent accounting shenanigans used by Microsoft to spirit Navision’s profits out of the country, and are demanding their pound of flesh. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/06/microsoft_fined_561_million_euros_over_browser_choice_gaffe/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/05/danish_tax_bill_microsoft/
Microsoft may be having money problems, but the games gorilla on the block, Electronic Arts (EA), is having server problems. After watching Steam for a couple of years, they belatedly realized that forcing people to be logged on their servers, even if it wasn’t technically necessary for playing the game, was a good way to impose digital restrictions management on their customers, who they mistakenly believe are too stupid to notice. The latest application of this dodgy wheeze is SimCity - Standard Edition, where you can’t even play a stand-alone game against the computer without being continuously logged on to EA’s servers. Unfortunately for EA, its servers aren’t working properly, which means that the people who shelled out US$60 for the program can’t play it.
Amazon even went as far as to stop selling it, after it had garnered 800+ one star customer reviews. I don’t think anything like that’s happened before! Personally, for a long time I’ve had a policy of not buying any games that require me to be connected to servers when I’m playing single player games. I guess if I’m that desperate for a particular game, I could always write my own version...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/07/amazon_pulls_simcity_after_server_woes/
You have to look at ‘stardust’, the recent video from astropixie, if you haven’t already discovered it. It’s superb and best looked at full screen (click on the four tiny little arrow marks just to the right of the ‘HD’ letters). Don’t forget to turn on the sound as well.
http://amandabauer.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/stardust.html
Homework:
IEEE Spectrum on line magazine has a fascinating article by Steve Mann who has been building, and wearing, computerized eyewear for over 35 years - long before Google was ever thought of, let alone starting to build its own version, known as Google Glass. The piece is a fascinating look at kit that’s commonly considered a ‘nerds only’ affair. Some of the things Steve Mann has done are absolutely fascinating - like enhancing the range of wavelengths so he can see into the infrared at the same time as seeing the normal spectrum. (With regular infrared goggles you only see the infrared.)
The welder mask he designed is superb - even if it does make the wearer look like a bit like Darth Vader. I have used welding equipment on art projects in the past and saw it in use in an industrial setting when I was a student working on the UK’s natural gas grid may years ago. I’ve seen welders with tears streaming from their eyes because of retinal burns caused by welding without the standard masks which obscured what they were doing. Mann’s mask processes the light to reduce contrast in real time, so that the welder can see both the arc and the joint being welded. Perhaps the days when welders have to retire by 30 will soon be over...
All in all a really fascinating piece that I have no hesitation in recommending, even though it is a little longer than the material I usually draw your attention to.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/profiles/steve-mann-my-augmediated-life/
For Geeks:
Head for Github, oh geeky types, for there you will find the source code for the very first ‘C’ compiler, exactly as posted by Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs! If you want to use it, though, you will need a PDP-11, or a simulator thereof. A PDP-11 may take a while to track down, (eBay anyone?) but surely it’s worth it for the street cred. Go for it!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/06/github_ancient_c_repository/
And if you are a jewellery wearing geek here are a couple things to put round your neck: a miniature wrench and screwdriver, or for those of you who prefer something a little less sophisticated, a miniature hammer and axe. Both sets are made in gold, so I doubt if they would actually be useful, but who knows...
http://eu.fab.com/inspiration/screwdriver-wrench-necklace
http://eu.fab.com/inspiration/hammer-axe-necklace-gold
Maybe you just want to impress your significant other? Then take a look at this UH-18SPW Hoverwing hovercraft. Zoom at 75mph at 10ft above the ground (or water). It’s a smart bit of kit that will make you the envy of your friends, or something like that!
http://www.hovercraft.com/content/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=53
Scanner: Other stories
Google to offer ‘same-day delivery’ Amazon Prime killer - report
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/06/google_shopping_express_trial/
Zapata’s outrageous, US$6,600 Flyboard - Aquaman meets Iron Man
http://www.gizmag.com/zapata-flyboard-jet-pack-watersport-boots/20772/
Picture of the week: Tibet’s Yarlung Tsangpo - known as the ‘Everest of rivers’
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=80558&src=eoa-iotd
Java zero-day security holes appearing at the rate of one a day
http://www.infoworld.com/t/java-programming/java-zero-day-holes-appearing-the-rate-of-one-day-213898?source=IFWNLE_nlt_blogs_2013-03-05
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Andrew, Barb, DJ and Fi for drawing my attention to material used in this issue.
Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Spamato spam filter...
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
10 March 2013
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.
