Saturday, November 13, 2004

Are Your Peripherals Monitoring You? An anonymous reader writes " Engadget is reporting that 'Lexmark, makers of printers and scanners, has been caught monitoring users' printer, scanning, and ink cartridge usage.'" Newsgroup comp.periphs.printers readers noticed the software; the Engadget report says that "Lexmark say they're just tracking printer and cartridge usage, but the registration information and packets being sent say otherwise." [Slashdot] 10:42:10 AM    comment []

Forget now who linked to this, but when I saw it open in my browser I thought I should: Amazon as a network OS What this means, in plain English, is that Amazon is now going to host data structures for online applications of any type. These data structures are specifically designed for use in asynchronous communication, so that different parts of a distributed application can talk to each other. This makes Amazon sort of like a massive bank of DRAM, in the sense that a normal, multithreaded application that needs to pass messages between asynchronous threads usually allocates structures in main memory for this purpose. So if the Internet is an operating system, and a distributed, networked application is a multithreaded process, then Amazon is the main memory that the process's threads use to communicate. . . . You know, it occurs to me that Amazon already has the foundation of a sort of "centralized Internet login" function, in the form of their "tip jar" application and affiliate program. In just a few clicks, I can use my Amazon account to send revenue to a 3rd party, with or without the purchase of a book. So I think the next step for Amazon is an MS Passport competitor. Think about it. They've already got your credit card number, shipping address, etc. on file, and now they're trying to insinuate themselves into the architecture of the Internet by providing back-end services for distributed applications. 6:41:34 AM    comment []

Three more from BNA News: BANGALORE LAUNCHES CYBERCAFE CRACKDOWN The City of Bangalore is launching new regulations on its cybercafes, requiring each establishment to establish a logbook with details of all users. If users do not have an identity card, the cybercafe is authorized to take a picture of the customer. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4000515.stm TIVO HACKING IS MAINSTREAM Five years after TiVo introduced the rewind and fast-forward buttons to broadcast television, hackers are pushing its digital video recorder to new heights. TiVo hacks available for download let those inclined to tinker do a range of things: add a Web interface to the TiVo unit, convert programs to DVD and other formats, alter TiVo native features, expand the unit's hard drive, transfer files back and forth from the unit to the PC, or archive shows at smaller file sizes. http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-5447461.html STUDY EXAMINES WORKPLACE USE OF IM According to a report issued by Meta Group, instant messaging is still used more often for personal reasons in the workplace than for business purposes. Fifty-seven percent of the people surveyed at 300 companies worldwide use IM at work for personal chitchat more often than for job-related communications. http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-5448618.html 6:41:23 AM    comment []