Year: 2005
Ending the broadcast flag (again)…
We killed it once, let us kill it again…Twenty members of Congress are calling for the reinstatement of the “broadcast flag,” a controversial form of copy prevention technology for digital TV broadcasts. In a letter Thursday, the politicians called for rapid approval of a federal law adopting the broadcast flag, which would outlaw over-the-air digital TV receivers and computer tuner cards that don’t follow strict anticopying standards. [via] Link.
Duct tape band-aids
Story about the 3M duct tape band-aids as well as a larger trend, duct tape becoming an acceptable wearable accessory – Many plasters [Band-Aids] are either covered in cartoon characters to appeal to children, or are pink in color – hardly a traditionally ‘masculine’ shade, Datamonitor says. However, Nexcare 3M Duct Tape Bandages, launched in the US, are gray in colour and feature a man’s hand on the packaging, holding a DIY tool. [via] Link.
HOW TO save as PDF with Microsoft Office now…
The big announcement over the weekend was that Office 12 will support PDF export from all the Office applications (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc..). Mac users have had this system wide for the most part for awhile, but if you’re on a PC you can also do this now, for free (as opposed to the pay versions of PDF exporting). CutePDF is a great, PDF online does it online…and Adobe can convert text or HTML too. Link.
Tweaking the Sonic Impact T-Amp
Zack writes “This Amp was mentioned earlier on BoingBoing and it seems that a number of audio enthusiasts have dedicated time to dissecting it and putting together improved version. It is quickly becoming the “six million dollar man” of Audiophiles for its superior audio output, extraordinarily low cost and small form factor”. Link.
Home Automation hacks (Wiki)
A couple cool hacks here – X10RfConfiguration – essentially converts the fairly unreliable powerline X10 to a more reliable (under many circumstances) RF X10 at virtually no cost and homebrew X10 signal analyzer – rather than measure signal strength, this homebrew signal analyzer (built with a lego mindstorms RCX) actually counts the transmissions that arrive at the destination X10 sensor, for comparison to the source sensor. Missing transmissions indicate reliability problems. Link.