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Tracking people is cool: Part #1 - Your Children

It's cool to keep track of your children all the time. Children who have chips in them are safer and are always on time for school. Many schools now take attendance electronically. There's no time to waste in today's classrooms. Also truancy has been eliminated both on and off of school grounds. No matter where our students have run to, we will find them. There truly is no where to hide.

If you didn't get a chip in your childhood, there's still a chance for you to join the system. Popular nightclubs now use a ChipWand[tm] to determine who is cool enough to enter the club. No longer do our nightclubs discriminate by looks, style or a VIP list. Now you too can become an InstantVIP[r] when you get your adult chip installed.

But it's not just for the clubs, it's also for the supermarket. Use your adult chip to get discounts on your favorite brand named softdrinks. Whether you thirst for Coke or Pepsi, we'll give you a great discount! Just wave your hand over the scanner at the grocery store and we know it's you.

Get the wave. Get on board. It's a great way to meet people. When you go to StarChips, you will be assured that only other chippers like you will be there and you can enjoy a cup of your favorite coffee prepared just the way you like it. Ever had the "local" treatment at over 5 million locations? Have a set of favorites and simply tell the cashier what you're in the mood for. She'll know exactly what you mean when you say I'll have a "#5 grande", because we know you. In fact, at your most frequented locations our AdvancePrediction system will pre-make your most popular choices at your most likely visit times.

Not only will you experience excellent service at StarChips cafes, you'll also be instantly entered into the LocalCafe[tm] system and everyone in the cafe will be able to check out your personal profile on their pdas or on the local computers. If you like a game of chess with your coffee and have noted this in your profile, expect the challengers to come running. And romance is easy when everyone knows everyone. Browse through our frequent visitors and your chipped romance is merely clicks away.

Not into the coffee house scene? Looking for security and worried about keeping in contact with emergency services? Why not the elderly chip? It sends out a HeartBeat[tm] signal every minute that transmits your important vital information to a nearby BeatStation[r] that will alert medical personal the minute you need it most.

Soon everyone will have a chip and tracking people will be easy.

I can't wait.

Sign me up!

Apparently, tracking your kid's every footstep with that undercover cellphone you "gave" him / her as a generous birthday present just isn't good enough for some overly protective (or paranoid) guardians, as Inilex's "Kepler Advantage" device gives parents the means to keep watch over any ill-advised joyrides your devious ones may take.

The GPS-enabled unit is meant to be stashed covertly within an automobile to track every movement it makes, and if the whip just so happens to break out of the user-set "virtual fence" (or exceed a set speed limit) you'll immediately receive an email or text message alerting you to start crafting an adequate form of punishment for whenever they (hopefully) return.

Additionally, the device is being marketed to vehicle fleet managers who seem to have a hard time receiving (and keeping) their stock, and while analysts aren't too sure that the $600 to $1,100 tracker will oust LoJack from its thief-deterring palace in the marketplace, Inilex hopes to do just that.

Currently, the outfit has just 5,000 customers, but if it were us worried about unsolicited movements of our vehicles, we'd just install one of the many omnipresent eyes below the rear-view mirror and catch 'em red handed. [link]

Last Blockbuster in Peru closes: because its cheaper to buy a pirated DVD than to rent one

How much longer before this happens in the US? Can you hear me movie industry? You better count your ducats and enjoy the past, because you're about to go the way of the music industry...

When you sue your audience, force them to upgrade format after format with no rebates and then overcharge them for shiny plastic discs that are cheaper to produce than VHS but cost more to buy (see cassette tapes/records vs. cds for a similar comparison... just because the quality is better doesn't mean it should cost more. If you can sell it cheaper you can sell more and make more money.... or you can just keep fucking your audience in the ass before they turn on you.)

How many more times will you buy the White Album?

The last movie rental outlet operating under the Blockbuster brand name has closed its doors in Peru, where it is often cheaper to buy a pirated DVD than it is to legally rent one.

Randy Hargrove, a spokesman for the U.S.-based Blockbuster, told Reuters on Wednesday the closure was linked to competition problems, but did not elaborate further.

"I can confirm the last shop shut down a few days ago... For now there are no plans to reenter the Peruvian market," he said.

Illegally produced DVDs of major Hollywood movies can be bought for around $1 from street vendors in downtown Lima, while it often costs twice as much to rent a licensed copy.

There were a dozen Blockbuster franchise rental outlets, operated by Video International Peru, in the country two years ago. Local daily newspaper El Comercio said Video International Peru officials last year blamed piracy for slumping revenues of the franchise. [link]

Government does not need warrant to search your e-mail

This is why I encrypt my mail and suggest that you do as well... My mail ain't no "e-postcards"...

To help prove their case, the government wanted access to Warshak's e-mail. They got a court order to access the e-mail accounts in question, but they did not get search warrants (court orders have a lower burden of proof). Warshak appealed this on Fourth Amendment grounds, arguing that a search warrant should have been required to peek "inside" his mail. The government responded by arguing that email was more analgous to "e-postcards" that could be read without "opening" anything. [link]

Vista == Big Brother, or why you won't be able to watch any video you want on Vista...

PC users around the globe may find driver software is stopped from working by Vista if it detects unauthorised content access. Peter Guttman, a security engineering researcher at New Zealand's university of Auckland, has written A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection. He reckons Vista is trying to achieve the impossible by protecting access to premium content. Users will find their PCs' compromised by the persistent and continuous content access checks carried out by Vista.

Gutman thinks these checks and the associated increased in multimedia card hardware costs make Vista's content protection specification 'the longest suicide note in history.'

The core elements in Vista have been designed to protect access to premium content. The design requires changes in multimedia cards before Microsoft will support them for Vista use.

Content that is protected by digital rights management (DRM) must be sent across protected interfaces. This means cards using non-protected interfaces can't be used by Vista PCs. [link]

Only on Saturday: Microsoft to Patent RSS

next microsoft will patent blogging, writing, speaking, farting, disease, and all other things. (this sentence is owned by microsoft) (which the mozilla spell checker doesn't recognize as a word, course it didnt' like mozilla either... or godzilla for that matter.)

slashdot: a patent on RSS only within Vista and IE7. From the article: "The big mystery is what Microsoft is planning to do with the patents if they are awarded them. The sad state of patent affairs in the United States has led to several cases of Microsoft being sued for technologies they did arguably invent simply because some else owned a generic patent on them. Of course we have no way of knowing how Microsoft intends to use these patents if they are awarded them. They could represent a defensive move, but they could be offensive as well -- [self-described RSS inventor Dave] Winer may end up being correct. It would be nice to see Microsoft release some information on what they plan to do with these patents, but for now we'll just have to wait and see whether the US Patent and Trademark Office grants them." [link]

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