via Gizmodo by Casey Chan on 10/4/12
Saturday, October 20, 2012
How Realistic Are All of James Bond's Weapons and Gadgets? [Movies]
FYI: Is It Legal To 3-D Print A Handgun?
via Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now by Clay Dillow on 10/4/12
Gun With Printed Lower Receiver Defense Distributed
The backers of the Wiki Weapons Project want to create a free, opensource digital file for printing a working handgun at home. But can they do so legally?
Earlier this week, the Wiki Weapons Project--an initiative to create a 3-D printed handgun and distribute the digital design file for free online--ran into a stumbling block when 3-D printer provider Stratasys pulled the lease on a printer it had provided the group. Stratasys cited a clause in the lease agreement that allows the company to rescind a lease for printers believed to be used for unlawful purposes. That raises the obvious (and thorny) question: Is the Wiki Weapons Project doing anything illegal?
We at PopSci are experts on many things, but federal firearms regulations and intellectual property law are not among them. As we understand it, one is required to obtain a federal firearms manufacturing license to produce firearms in this country--if those firearms are for sale. The Wiki Weapons Project has demonstrated no intention to sell any potential firearm it creates, but rather to create a freely distributed digital file that would allow anyone with the right hardware and know-how to print their own firearm.
And the law doesn't have much to say about that, not explicitly, anyway. Regardless of your personal feelings toward the Wiki Weapons Project, it is at the very least forcing us to take a look at what happens in a world where information (which wants to be free) can be easily converted into physical objects--many of which (like firearms) are not supposed to flow freely.
"You have an Anarchist's Cookbook kind of question. Just information is generally pretty hard to make illegal. It's just information."
"This raises lots of interesting questions," says Michael Weinberg, a staff attorney at Public Knowledge, a legal consortium focused on digital technology, the internet and intellectual property. "There are going to be a lot of stories in the future about people doing interesting things and uninteresting things with 3-D printing. The question people need to ask themselves is: was this possible before 3-D printing? And if so, did the use of a 3-D printer fundamentally change the nature of it. For this, it seems to me that the answer is no."
That's a common sentiment among the experts we talked to.
"With traditional machine tools, one is already capable of manufacturing one's own firearms," says Christopher Walsh, clinical instructional fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. "Although I am not an expert on gun control laws, I would be very surprised if existing regulations did not already account for home manufacture of firearms. Also, for the time being, it takes far less money, effort, and expertise to simply buy a firearm on the black market than to 3-D print one."
So the idea that there's no legal framework in place to govern the 3-D printing of guns isn't really accurate. Whatever laws govern the making of firearms at home by means other than 3-D printing should also regulate whatever the Wiki Weapons Project cooks up (assuming they can locate another 3-D printer). Of course, there are considerations beyond the strictly legal.
"From my perspective, this really doesn't raise novel questions of intellectual property rights, but common sense and potential civil and criminal liabilities," says Michael Powell, an intellectual property attorney in the Atlanta office of Baker Donelson. "What 'defense' is this group really trying to achieve that couldn't be achieved using a legal purchased firearm, or even a Taser, a can of pepper spray or mace, or other personal protection device?"
Wiki Weapons Project leader Cody Wilson, a University of Texas Law Student himself, claims the project is about "collapsing the distinction between digital information and material goods" and a "statement to these international kleptocrats that this isn't in your control anymore." Less inflammatory, perhaps, is Wilson's assertion that 3-D printing is a technology whose time has come. So if the Wiki Weapons Project isn't, strictly speaking, illegal under the current legal framework, what does this mean for the future of free information in a world where data can quickly become a physical object? How could something like this influence the future of intellectual property law? And is Wiki Weapons, by pushing this idea of freedom of information in such a controversial way, undermining its own ideals?
"These files aren't guns," Weinberg says. "You have an Anarchist's Cookbook kind of question. Just information is generally pretty hard to make illegal. It's just information. So the fact that you can now get this file and it can tell you how to produce a gun is very similar to a recipe online that tells you how to build a bomb or something like that. Just because a Web site tells you how to do something like that doesn't make the Web site illegal."
At least not yet. At some point in the future it could be, depending on how legislatures decide to deal with perceived threats to law and order. And hopefully, Weinberg says, they won't deal with this technology by overreacting.
"Technology is ahead of the law in a lot of ways," Weinberg says. "One of the things I tell policy makers a lot is that when you have a new technology where it's not clear how it's going to be used or how it's going to be adopted, the worst things you can do is imagine the most dystopian future you can possibly imagine and then try to regulate to prevent that dystopian future. For two reasons: One, because that dystopian future is never going to happen, so on one level you've wasted your time. But the most pernicious thing is that what you inevitably do is you outlaw things that could've been very productive and useful, things that you weren't smart enough to think of at the time. So not only are you not preventing this dystopia, but you are actively preventing positive outcomes."
Harvard's Walsh agrees.
"It is an area that will raise many new questions," he says. "But the hope is that we will not overreact and sacrifice either the positive potential of this new technology or Constitutional protections."
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FTC Cracks Down on Fake Tech Support Websites
via PCMag.com Breaking News on 10/4/12
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission today announced a crackdown on tech support websites that tricked users into paying for the removal on non-existent computer viruses.
Sidewinders 6: Texas Bloodshed
via GraphicAudio - New Releases by support@graphicaudio.net (GraphicAudio) on 10/4/12
If there's anything better than coming home to Texas, it's getting paid to do it. For Scratch Morton and Bo Creel, always on the hunt for funds, the job is taking three vicious criminals from Arkansas to Tyler, Texas for trial. Little do they know that one of the criminals, the one that's a beautiful woman, is the most dangerous of all. Soon the journey home turns into a race for buried treasure, a shoot-out, and another double cross - until Scratch and Bo are making one last mad, bullet-sprayed dash through the land of their birth ...or the land of their death...
Writers Needed for The Firearm Blog
via The Firearm Blog by Steve (The Firearm Blog) on 10/3/12
We plan on expanding the number of guns and accessories we review and so we are looking for new writers. How many jobs can you think of that pay you to shoot the latest guns?
What Skills, Qualifications & Experience are Required?
The required skills for the job are
- English writing and communication skills.
- Internet research skills.
- Organizational skills (time management, detailed orientated, etc).
- Technical knowledge of firearms.
Experience blogging is not required but would help your application.
What Personal Characteristics Are We Looking For?
A passion for firearms is absolutely essential!
The ability to work independently is required. If you require someone looking over your shoulder to keep you motivated, then this position is not for you.
Working independently with expensive firearms requires high degree of trust. Dishonesty will not be tolerated.
Who Can Apply
Due to the requirements imposed to us by the gun companies who provide guns for testing and evaluation, the position is limited to residents of the lower 48 states who are aged 21 or older. We cannot make any exceptions.
You need to be legally able to own AND receive firearms and ammunition. If you live in an area that precludes you from receiving firearms, for example a campus dorm, then this job would not be suitable for you.
If you live in a state or city with restrictive firearm ownership laws, for example California, you may still apply but this would severely limit the kind of products and guns you could review for us.
Travel
There may be opportunities to travel to industry events. Please indicate in your application if you are available to travel.
Compensation
TBD.
How To Apply?
Email the following to jobs+resume@thefirearmblog.com …
- Your résumé.
- The name, alias and email you use for commenting on TFB or communicating with Steve (if applicable).
- Your blog, website, Twitter, Tumbler, etc. accounts (if you have one).
- Your firearm experience level and what type of guns and accessories you are especially passionate about.
- Any special circumstances that may prevent you from doing the job.
- A one sentence statement confirming that no Federal, State or local laws or regulations prevent you from being able to legally own or receive firearms.
- A writing sample, or a link to a writing sample.
- Any ideas you have for specific articles (non-review articles).
Double check that you have included everything before you hit send. We expect a lof of applications, so please be patient while we work our way through them. We will endeavour to process the applications as fast as possible.
If you have sent us some or all of this information in the past, we do need you to send it in again.
Application Deadline
Please ensure all applications and required information have been sent to us by Sunday 14 October.
Any Further Questions
Read the above job description again before asking questions! If you have further questions about the job email jobs@thefirearmblog.com.
5 Reasons Why The Kindle's Touchscreen Is Worse Than Buttons
via Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now by Dan Nosowitz on 10/3/12
Kindle Paperwhite Dan Bracaglia
The newest Kindle is great! But touchscreens on ebook readers have serious problems. Not everything has to be a touchscreen, okay?
To get it out of the way: Kindle rules. But, Amazon's flagship Kindle, now the Kindle Paperwhite, continues a trend that very much does not rule: forcing us all to use a touchscreen to navigate an ebook. That is wrong! It doesn't mean Kindle is a bad product--it still rules--but it could rule more, and we want it to rule more.
98% of your time with a Kindle is spent reading a book, rather than shopping or browsing or adjusting settings or whatever, which means the vast majority of your navigation is two commands: page-forward and page-back. The touchscreen is great for everything except for those two commands--it's much faster to select items in a list, for example, by tapping what you want rather than pressing the "down" arrow past all the things you don't want. It's also much easier to type in the on-screen keyboard. But having a touchscreen as the only option doesn't make sense: why would you opt for a control scheme that's great for the stuff you do rarely, and not great for the stuff you do all the time?
Here's why touchscreens are not great for ebook readers:
It's slower: This is a nitpick, but this entire article is a nitpick about a product I really think is great, so, you know, onwards! It is slower to operate a touchscreen than to press a button. That's one thing that's not thought about in the transition from paper to E Ink: turning a page takes much longer than pressing the "next page" button. Cool! Faster reading. But the touchscreen is also slower than a button. The old page-turn buttons are on the bezel around the screen, so your thumb falls naturally on them. You don't have to move your thumb laterally at all to turn a page; you just apply a tiny amount of force. But with a touchscreen, you have to move your thumb from the bezel to the screen, then either tap or execute and even longer page-turn gesture by swiping. Slower = worse.
Off-balance: Going along with the speed problem: moving your thumb means lessening the strength of your grip on the Kindle. On a bumpy subway ride, you don't want to be delicately balancing a $180 object on your fingers while your thumb gropes for the "next page" touch zone. You especially don't want to have to do that every minute, every single time you read a book.
Accidental press: After I transfer trains on my commute to work, touchscreen Kindle in hand, I sometimes look at the Kindle and realize I'm no longer on the same page I was when I stopped reading. Your hand brushes it, some drunk guy elbows it, whatever--that's a page turn. It's much easier to accidentally touch any part of the screen than to press a slim button on the bezel of a device. And there's no way to lock the screen to avoid that, because there's no other navigation at all: if you locked the screen, you couldn't do anything.
Blind gestures Swiping to turn pages works fine if you're used to reading on a tablet, but I (and many other people) am not, so it feels weird. The left-to-right and right-to-left swipe works on tablets because you can see the next or previous page as you drag it onto the screen. There's a sense of progress: you can see the new page appearing, stuck to your thumb, taking over the screen. On the Kindle, you can't see this happening, which makes that a blind gesture, a gesture which you perform and sit back and hope it works. It co-opts a familiar gesture, but its hardware can't replicate the sensation that makes that gesture make sense. Blind gestures: bad!Tapping is hard: One of the great things about the Kindle is one-handed navigation, but it's much harder to do when you have to tap wholly different parts of the screen to navigate. If you hold the Kindle Paperwhite with your left hand, to go forward by swiping (nope! Blind gesture!) or by stretching your thumb into the middle of the screen, because tapping the left-hand side makes you go back a page. It's easier when holding the device in your right hand, unless you want to go back a page, in which case you have to stretch allllll the way over to the left-hand side. Awkward!
What grates is that the choice between touchscreen and buttons isn't a choice Amazon has to make. Usually I'm not in favor of having too many ways to do the same thing--it's my major beef with Android--but in this case I think it's essential. Barnes & Noble's flagship Nook, the Nook Simple Touch With Glowlight, keeps the page-turn buttons alongside the touchscreen. Buttons for turning pages, touchscreen for everything else. Perfect!
I don't want to suggest that the Kindle Paperwhite is a non-great product (we'll have a review up later this afternoon, and, um, spoiler, but it's great). The touchscreen problem should not stop you from buying a Kindle. This is a plea to Amazon: your cool thing could be a cooler thing. Make it cooler, please!
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Fake Toes Found In Ancient Egyptian Tombs Could Be The World's Oldest Prosth...
via Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now by Clay Dillow on 10/3/12
The (Possible) Oldest Prosthesis Known to Man University of Manchester
There is a documented history of ancient Egyptians creating fake body parts to augment bodies headed for burial, but a new study suggests that two artificial toes recovered from tombs there may in fact be the oldest known prosthetic body parts. Researchers at the University of Manchester made replicas of the two items--both right big toes--and had volunteers missing those toes to wear them. The fake toes showed to be not only comfortable to wear, but to also vastly improve their walking while wearing traditional Egyptian sandals, suggesting these toes had more than an aesthetic, funerary purpose.
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A look at the T-Mobile/MetroPCS combined spectrum and coverage area
via Android Phone Fans by Kevin Krause on 10/3/12
In case you missed it, this morning Deutsche Telekom completed an arrangement that will see the merger of their US branch of T-Mobile with MetroPCS. While the financial and business details have been covered, here’s a look at how the merger will expand coverage area and wireless spectrum holdings for the new venture. As you can see from the above map showing combined coverage area, the two networks overlap in the majority of shared markets.
The real gains come in spectrum, which includes AWS and LTE, as can be seen in the maps detailing each network before (below) and after (above) the merger. The strength of MetroCPS coverage in the Northeast could be used to balance T-Mobile’s weaknesses in the same region. Regardless, the two networks operate on different standards, with the CDMA network of MetroPCS eventually shutting down with spectrum repurposed for T-Mobile’s GSM operations. The two companies expect to complete the deal by mid-2013.
This New Vampire Dinosaur Will Haunt Your Dreams Tonight [Video]
via Gizmodo by Jesus Diaz on 10/3/12
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