Have Laptop Will Travel

Another stupid RIAA statement

Originally posted on January 2, 2008 @ 10:54 pm

Have Laptop Will Travel will not be complete without the occasional dig at the RIAA and what the morons in the organization are doing to stop “piracy”.

Take for example, this statement from Jennifer Pariser, chief of litigation for Sony BMG, which was uttered during the trial of Jammie Thomas, a woman from Minnesota who was ordered to pay $220,000.00 by the court for sharing 24 songs online. Pariser testified that: “When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song.” He added that when one makes that copy, it’s “a nice way of saying ‘steals just one copy.'”

Pariser just said that even if you own a CD, copying it to your hard drive for your own personal listening purposes constitutes to stealing. Isn’t that just stupid? I’ve heard the RIAA has already modified their statements regarding this topic but nevertheless, that earlier statement just shows how blinded the RIAA can get just to protect their interests. They don’t even care if they alienate legitimate CD buyers.

I wish 2008 will bring the geriatric geezers at the RIAA to their senses.

Pirate Bay to develop new P2P software

Originally posted on November 6, 2007 @ 10:45 pm

With the crackdown on the well loved Oink a few weeks ago, the issue of torrents, intellectual property rights and the downloading community worldwide has become a hot issue again. Pirate Bay, one of the leading torrent trackers in the world and perennial thorn on the side of the old stogies in the music and film industries announced that it is developing a new software that will make it so much easier for users to exchange files.

According to the website, the success of Bittorrent may just lead to trackers establishing legitimate relationships with media companies and eventually result in trackers discouraging the trading of pirated files. According to Pirate Bay founder Peter Sunde, they hope to release the first version of the software very soon. He has even started asking developers for help in developing the app by visiting http://securep2p.com.

Pirate Bay has unofficially become the poster child for the bittorrent movement — consistently thumbing their noses at authorities and always managing to go back online even if they are shut down by authorities. The development of this new software will become another contention for media companies that are so obviously losing the battle against so called pirates.

Samsung unveils prototype 31-inch OLED screen

Originally posted on December 27, 2007 @ 10:53 pm

I am eagerly awaiting the eventual production of OLED laptops because of its ultra thin screens and low power consumption. But with the technology still in its infancy, I am just eagerly devouring any news pertaining to OLEDs. Take this news for instance. Samsung recently announced that they have developed a 31 inch organic screen.

The funny thing about this announcement is that it comes in the heels of Sony putting on sale an 11 inch OLED TV last November. This essentially trumps Sony’s efforts in the OLED front (and we’re not yet even counting Sony’s 27 inch prototype, which it unveiled before).

OLEDs are being seen as another factor that will drive the sales of flast screen monitors. Samsung still has not given any firm plans as to when the 31 inch screen will be mass produced. But the company is rumored to showcase a 31 inch prototype TV set at the Consumer Electronics Show this January.

Walgreens to offer DVD copying services

Originally posted on October 29, 2007 @ 10:50 pm

 I’ve contended time and time again that present laws on copyright are outdated and should be changed or revamped in order to more accurately reflect the change in paradigms in terms of intellectual property. The old fogeys at the RIAA and its film counterpart are just being stubborn for trying to go after the fans themselves. It’s a very shortsighted solution in a battle in which they will just lose anyway. We need newer and better alternatives.

The decision of Walgreens to setup kiosks that will allow consumers to make legitimate copies of DVDs through a system that is also designed to discourage piracy is a welcome one, in my opinion.

Changes in how copy protection laws impact on DVDs have made this “experiment” viable and is encouraging not only Walgreens but also other retailers as well to allow consumers to make copies of DVDs in their stores.

This is a win-win situation for both consumers and for movie studios. Burning copies means cheaper costs, while studios also get a cut of the revenues generated for the services — and they don’t even have to spend on manufacturing and shipping costs.

The idea is already generating a lot of buzz and many people are hoping that this is going to become a success. I hope that this is going to become an important step towards the right direction.

Alienware to ship select notebooks, desktops with solid state drives

Originally posted on October 9, 2007 @ 11:25 pm

The hard drive sector has not seen a lot of groundbreaking innovations in many years but the growing popularity of solid state hard drives may be a sign that the hard drive market is about to enter a new age. We all know how delicate traditional platter-based hard drives are. Any kind of sudden bumps could damage the sensitive mechanism inside the drive and we’re not yet even talking about the platter itself. With the release of more and more high capacity flash based drives there really is a growing interest in solid state drives as a legitimate successor to the old technologies.

Alienware, the well known gaming desktop and laptop maker, announced that it will begin shipping solid state hard drives in some of its desktop and notebook models.

The company’s Area-1 ALX and Aurora ALX is touted be the first desktops to be equipped with a 64GB solid state disk or SSD. No price was announced yet for the product but a cursory look at Alienware’s website shows that it is charging $1,700 for a Raid 0 configuration employing two 64 GB SSDs.

That is a very high price to pay for a new technology. But then, it is also understandable, given that SSDs are still prohibitively expensive at this point of its existence because the demand still has not reached a critical level that would warrant a lowering of prices. SSDs are really a good choice though because of its faster access time, lower latencies and the aforementioned resistance to hard bumps.

I’m definitely going to jump on the SSD bandwagon — once prices drop to realistic levels.