Someone posted this link on the VanLUG mailing list. Very interesting!
Sony - Open Source Code - English
The following products incorporate software covered by the terms of the GNU General Public License and/or GNU Lesser General Public License, as specified in the software listing below.
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Been looking forward to this coming out. Now all I need is an HD source. 
HD PVR Product overview
HD PVR is the world’s first High-Definition video recorder for making real-time H.264 compressed recordings at resolutions up to 1080i. HD-PVR records component video (YCrCb) from cable TV and satellite set top boxes, with a built-in IR blaster to automatically change TV channels for scheduled recordings. Audio is recorded using AAC or Dolby Digital.
My grandpa would have been happy to see this story.
MP to introduce bill to eliminate the penny
A Winnipeg MP who thinks the penny is a nuisance and too expensive to ship around the country is expected to introduce a private member’s bill on Monday to take it out of circulation.
It makes sense for a variety of reasons:
The article brings up an interesting note that I doubt my grandfather ever considered: electronic payments. Transactions that are done with debit or credit cards would not be rounded to 5 cents, they would round to the penny. But this begs the question, what should we round transactions to? Computers can handle large numbers of decimal places, so why round to the penny? We shouldn’t round the amounts for any transactions that are done electronically.
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This is fantastic! I’m not a camera buff but I love hearing about people hacking their devices to add features that would never get included into a commercial product. Playing Reversi on your digital camera is such a cool idea.
CHDK is a firmware enhancement that operates on a number of Canon Cameras. CHDK gets loaded into your camera’s memory upon bootup (either manually or automatically). It provides additional functionality beyond that currently provided by the native camera firmware.
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Enter service menu by first unplugging set, then while holding both input button and volume down button, plug TV back in. Within about 5 seconds, the set will power up (without pressing the “on” button); keep holding the input and volume down buttons until a small “K” appears in a box on the left side of the screen. Then press and hold the channel down and vol down buttons at the same time to enter the service menu.
I’m assuming that my Sharp will use the same procedure, even though it isn’t a 46″.
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The Daily, Tuesday, January 8, 2008. Study: Scientists and engineers and urban growth
The mix in university-educated workers mattered. Scientists and engineers are often seen to play a catalytic role regarding employment growth in cities. Here, the study found that the share of workers in science and engineering occupations, the “left brain” of cities, is closely connected to employment growth when these workers are located in cities with large and diverse pools of university-educated workers.
Statscan shows an interesting trend on growth rates in cities, where the employment grew by 2.0% in areas of higher concentrations of university graduates, vs 1.6% for lower concentrations. Compound that annually over 20 years and you get 49% growth vs 37% growth.
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I loaded up Future Shop’s web page this morning to check out TV deals. They have a great idea on their front page, a slider that you move depending on a person’s tech savvy, and it will suggest gifts on the right scale. Great idea! I cranked it up to 100% to see what it suggested. The first thing was the Monster AVS 2000:
Monster’s AVS 2000 is a serious product for serious home theater enthusiasts. It has been hailed as a truly innovative and invaluable product by reviewers and the buying public. The AVS 2000 is designed to stabilize power line fluctuations and maintain constant voltage to your home theatre for maximum performance.
As usual, Monster is scamming people with overpriced equipment that they don’t need.
At first glance, it might seem like it is a good idea, since your house voltage does fluctuate depending on the load, but rarely between 80-140V. Generally it will be between 115-120V. BC Hydro is automatically monitoring and adjusting the power on the grid to keep it within spec.
Even if the power does change, it won’t make any difference to your electronic equipment, because they all convert the 120V AC power into whatever DC power they need. For example your computer’s power supply has -12, -5, 5, and 12V. I’m not sure about TVs but I can guarantee that they aren’t running off 120V directly. All of your equipment is carefully engineered to be able to run off relatively dirty 120V because the designers already know that this power will fluctuate. There is huge amount of study done on power supplies, the first thing that we did at UBC in the lab was to build our own!
Let’s look at some of the results people have had with their equipment. Positive Feedback Issue 6 says this:
As numerous folks have reported, audio and video benefits from the use of a power conditioner in a number of ways. There is less low-level hash and noise, the absence of which makes the audio signal appear to arrive from a darker, inkier background, and video images from a cleaner, crisper screen. Details are heard and seen that were masked before. Tonal density (audio and video) is more saturated, and seems richer and more natural.
Video is crisper? Really? Interesting. Now how did they test this… well they hooked it all up after spending $1500 US, and wow, the sound and video improved. What kind of equipment did they use to make the voltage fluctuate? Oh, they didn’t. How did they test the audio? Hmm, with their ears. No test equipment in sight. No double-blind tests, nothing.
Save your money and buy a line conditioner from a real power company. You can get a 2400W conditioner from TrippLite for $400. It’s the same rating, 20A, and the same number of outlets. I have no relation to TrippLite, they were just the first one to come up on a Google search.
Or, if you are cheap like me, just ignore the click in the audio when your fridge turns on.
CBC.ca Arts - Libraries urge Ottawa to consider consumers in drafting copyright law
The CLA fears the Canadian government, now redrafting copyright legislation, will create a new act closely mirroring U.S. legislation that curtails consumer rights, such as the right to copy material for their own use, Don Butcher, executive director of the Canadian Libraries Association said in a news conference in Ottawa Friday. “This is a battle between Hollywood lobbyists versus the average Canadian,” Butcher said. He called for a “made-in-Canada” solution that balances the rights of consumers with the rights of creators. Any changes made to law should protect artists such as musicians and authors, but also allow copying for individual use, he said.
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I’ve talked about the need for balanced copyright for many years, but we’ve never seen this much public engagement in copyright. That is because the real story is that copyright matters to people and they now have the tools to make their voices heard. I’m thrilled to have played a role in raising awareness, but the real credit goes to the thousands of people who took the time to write or call their elected representatives, to blog about the issue, to attend the Toronto or Calgary events, or to raise awareness with their friends, family and community.
I’ve been doing my part. On Monday night I sent a letter to my MP, James Moore, whom I talked to at his open house on Saturday. He said that he would pass on my concerns to the Minister of Industry. I’ve also managed to sign 16 people up to the Facebook group.