cubicgarden.com...

The music industry is so out of touch its not even funny

[ All media ]

Slotmusic is a collaboration between Universial music, Sony BMG, Warner music and EMI. Basiclly its DRM free music distrubuted on microSD cards. Yes microSD cards, why? I don't know, but it shows how out of touch the music industy really is. Not defending the iphone or ipod but like it or not there the most popular at the moment and they don't support microSD cards. Does the Zune? Don't think so either. I also have no idea whos going to pay for music on MicroSD? I bet the cards are locked to the drive, so that means swapping the · Online and P2P distrubtion is the way forward period. Hell I just bought 12 tunes from Audiojelly.com yesterday. Cost me about 16 pound in total.

Flights booked and here's whats getting me excited about the Web 2.0 Expo

[ Socially Offline ]

So I have laid down the money for the flights and I'm going for sure now. I decided to go via Liverpool Airport, because getting to Luton Airport was always going to painful from Manchester. It either ended up with me sleeping at the Airport, Traveling on a Coach for 5 hours or spending time in London then going to Luton early in the morning.

I've also been planning my days through the schedule, here's some of the highlights which I want to attend.

• Better Media Plumbing for the Social Web by Stowe Boyd.
• How Do You CC? Creative Commons Case Studies for the Social Web
• Living in the Compute Cloud by Jonathan Weiss
• Leisa Reichelt and Suw Charman-Anderson's talks during lunch
• Designing for Flow by Bruno Figueiredo
• Web Next Generation, The Future of Context and Mobile by Jari Pasanen
• The Web in the World by Timo Arnall
• Electricity 2.0: Using the Lessons of the Web to Improve Our Energy by Tom Raftery, James Governor

All interesting stuff... but I'm wondering if 15mins is long enough to cover the woman in technology problem? I don't know if there is a girl geekdinner in Berlin? But maybe it might be a good place/chance to really delve into the issues. Tara Hunt ran a session at BarCampNorthEast which went into a lot more depth that anything I've heard before. I got a feeling Suw is certainly look at the issue at that level and deeper. I will try and get as much of it on camera of course.

SockStress could make every TCP service vulnerable

[ General computing ]

I found this by listening to Security Now number 164, it sounds very dramatic and most of you will be thinking yeah yeah whatever but...this seems like the real deal. Rather than try and explain it, here's a subset from the notes of Security now. I did look at a couple other places, but Steve Gibson has the best non-packet hacker description of what's really going on.

“SockStress” (not publicly released) reportedly uses several new techniques to create a low-bandwidth (as low as ten packets per second) local resource depletion attack resulting in denial of service oS) by TCP servers (www, ftp, smtp, pop, etc.) running Windows, Linux, BSD, undisclosed routers, and other Internet appliances.

Although the researchers plan to demonstrate their techniques on October 17th, at the end of the second day of the forthcoming T2'08 conference in Helsinki, Finland, their 44 minute interview on September 30th, 2008 for the De Beveiligingsupdate site (see original and edited audio links below) provided far too much detail — enough so that any informed packetsmith who understands the TCP protocol would be able to easily recreate their attacks.

As a consequence, they effectively “went public” with their discovery of these vulnerabilities after informing other vendors only a few weeks beforehand

So generally the Finnish guys have found a way to mess with the TCP stack to the extend that you can cause a deinal of service on ANY server which uses TCP including web, ftp, etc. Using a very low amount of hardware and bandwidth. Not even IPv6 escapes this problem.

Using Hamachi again but on your phone too

[ Mobile and Wireless ]

In my Windows days I would use Hamachi for my VPN client and server. But when I switched to gnu/linux I attempted to stick with it but got fed up of the weird UI's and lack of stability I was experiencing. So I stopped using it and looked into openswan and other VPN clients/servers solutions. Problem is I never quite got on with those either although I did get as far as having the PTP/OpenSSL option in my networking Well after months of not using any VPN options at all. I found the ideal Hamachi client for Linux and got Hamachi working on everything including my old download machine and even my phone! Yes you heard me right, I have the same powerful VPN technology on my Windows Mobile phone too. There's not much you can do right now but its working in 0.30 beta form. I found it because I was thinking they've had a Nokia 770 version for ages but why not Windows Mobile? I imagine Android won't be long behind the Symbian and Windows Mobile versions if things go well. Iphone version? Nahh I can't see Steve Jobs allowing that in the Apps store. Some of you may say why do you need VPN for phones? Well at least with Hamachi, its a direct connection to my machines, so I'm able to for example see how a download is going at home (although to be fair I've also got a XMPP/Jabber bot which does this too). You can't do it yet, but imagine, being able to pull files back and forth over the network, sync and print to the remote printer. Actually these are possible if you've got some web front end on the remote machine right now. I can't even imagine the possibilities if you turn it the other way around and added some core phone API support. VPN into your phone and flip the goodbye forever switch if its stolen? Who knows...

Just bought a ticket to the official after party for Web 2.0 Expo

[ Web 2.0 ]

The official LateCrunch Party to Web 2.0 Expo, costs roughly 12 pounds, starts at 10pm and ends 4am in the morning. Seems perfect if your planning to catch the easyjet flight (Redeye) back to London at 6am. This also means I'm now committed to going now. Yes I'll be going to BarCampBerlin3, yes I'm going to the conference too. But somewhere in between I need to spend some time with my great german friend Carl who's putting me up at his place during the week. Shame I'll be out most of the time. Anyway i'll make it up to him somehow.

Good on Tim Oreilly too.... Stop building crappy apps and build stuff which changes the world. This is certainly why Backstage and myself finds things like scripting enabled, AMEE and Operation Sleeper Cell really important.

The Price of Property, Fools Gold (Manchester)

[ Just plain life ]

So if you missed it, the Price of Property on Channel4 (ep3 of 4) was all about Manchester. It had everything in it from the new place Urbansplash was advertising to me a few weeks back to the megabucks deansgate tower (all of 5mins walk from where I live). But what was most interesting was the woman who paid for 7 flats without looking at them in person. Yes its tragic, but the flats which they filmed her going into were the the Danube flats. Yes my block of flats. She's has the bigger balcony that myself but everything is exactly the same. More pictures here.

Generally the documentary series is interesting and worth catching if you can. Its certainly made me think more twice about buying a flat in Manchester at this current moment. I might even be better moving out and into a another set of flats. Rental pricing is going down and that means those penthouse appartments are even more affordable.

XBMC media centre, what every large TV was made to display

[ Home entertainment ]

I did do a session about the XBMC media centre and Boxee at BarCampLondon5, but unfortunately I picked 10am on Sunday morning which was too early really. So I had a grand total of about 5 people listening. Anyway, one of the things I remember talking about at the session was the attention to ui detail xbmc always had. Its almost unlike any other open source project I know of, the technical and  interface attentions have been equally catered for. Last night (4am) before the talk but of course after playing werewolf. I got Boxee working and I installed the mediastream skin in XBMC. I was amazed... Then I saw it on the 50inch Plasma during my talk and WOW! And that was over a analogue VGA connection on a cloned screen. So when I finally got home a hour ago, I tried it on my dedicated XBMC and Boxee machine over HDMI using the correct rez.

All I can say is, this is what my LCD has been waiting for. Corner to corner smooth but uncluttered ui to play all my media on.

I have got to give a huge shout to not only to the mediastream guys who are uk based but also Vinci, Focus, Aeon and of course Project Mayhem (Germany I think)

Here's some screenshots from Vinci as a appetiser. I can't wait to start playing with the scripts and remote controls now.

MediaCityUK latest artist impression

[ Just plain life ]

Hot of the press, here's the latest artist impression of what MediaCityUK is going to look like in Salford Quays. Interestingly enough the big criss-crossed building is the new location of Salford University. Next to that is a hotel, then next to that one of the BBC buildings. If your interested in more pictures, check out my Salford quays set.

Windows finally respond to Mac vs PC adverts

[ General computing ]

Microsoft just killed the Mac vs PC adverts. You'll never be able to look at those Mac adverts in the same way again. However I still can't work out if the earlier jerry seinfeld & bill gates adverts were super clever or simply advertising suicide? Either Microsoft are playing a amazing poker game or playing crazy?

Further evidence of lock in...

[ Web 2.0 ]

Tristan Ferne found this the other day,

CEO David Sacks says there are now 10,000 networks and 50,000 users just one week in. Yammer’s business model is to let people use the service for free, spreading it throughout the enterprise. When and if a company wants to take administrative control over the account, Yammer charges $1/user/month. Administrators can set access controls, such as IP controls and SSL.

The company already allows interaction with the service via the site, an AIR client, iPhone, Blackberry, IM, SMS and email. This evening they’ve also launched an API to allow third party developers to build Yammer into their applications.

Maybe it might start at one dollar a month but who knows what it might turn into, because by then your enterprise social network is in there hands. I have no idea why we're not running to Laconi.ca faster. Maybe because it will actually require someone to set it up, keep it running and administrate it?

Peter Hirshberg: The Web and TV, a sibling rivalry

[ Home entertainment ]

Another excellent talk' from TED...

In this absorbing look at emerging media and tech history, Peter Hirshberg shares some crucial lessons from Silicon Valley and explains why the web is so much more than "better TV."

Whats the unique selling point for non-geeks to buy the Gphone?

[ Mobile and Wireless ]

HTC create the most advanced mobile devices in the world I would say. And i'm not the only one who would say this either thankfully. They've made Windows Mobile actually attractive and affordable enough. So if you replaced Windows Mobile with almost anything else and you will get one hell of a Geek phone. So great, a phone which the geeks and developers always wanted, but what's going to be the unique selling point for non-geeks? This is the question I pose to the Google's Mike Jennings at Google Developer Day last week.

His answer "Software" was less that satisfactory. I mean you got two phones which look exactly like, they do the same stuff, are priced about the same only one has windows on it and the other google. As a non-geek user which one which you pick? Seriously, which one? Google are going about this all too geek like. Yes developers and geeks will buy the Gphones but unless they put a bundle of goodies on the phone which you can't get anywhere else, there going to lose out. I mean simply putting Google maps, Gmail and Google Search on the device isn't going to cut it. My Windows mobile currently has all that plus thanks to the OpenGL drivers written by the community (no thanks to HTC for that) equalivent OpenGL support. Maybe a few years back when Windows Mobile weren't so open you could make the point that the Gphone software arguement would hold up. But recently I've seen everything including the dialer, mail client and gui replaced if required. For example PointUI's Home. It replaces most of windows mobile user interface with a custom one. I did show Mike Jennings the interface and he was very suprised how customised my windows mobile phone was. So I expect most of the apps which get built on the Gphone will be build on Windows Mobile too and vice-versa.

So what is the unique selling point going to be? I'm starting to think Google are happy with it just being a project thats on going - just an alternative. Never really going to be number one, but then again won't cost much to keep going. A bit like Chrome?

Sending data into the Cloud, but what about getting it back?

[ Web 2.0 ]

So I've been thinking a lot about cloud computing recently and wanted to share a couple of interesting uses of sensor to cloud to visualisation application. While at BarCampBrighton3, Tom Morris showed me Rescue Time. I originally poopoo'ed it because Miles had showed me about a year ago something exactly the same but it only worked on OSX. But after a little research, I had found the community driven Linux version and was up and running shortly afterwards. My main reason for doing this was to track what I'm doing for work and myself. So I'm now generating tons of data and have to find ways to filter/transform it automaticlly into our BBC time tracking system. Of course I wouldn't have signed up if there wasn't plans to allow you to take your data away later. There's already widgets which are useful but a API is being planned along with other developer tools. Generally my computer has a little sensor (application in this case) which it uses to work out what application your using and for how long. The real number crunching is then done in the crowd along with the other stacks of data from you and other users. The data is then turned into information which in much more digestable. Don't get me wrong this isn't new, much talked about Fitbit does the exactly the same thing. The little sensor will track how much activity you have been up to while walking, running, working out or even sleeping. This is then sync'ed with a computer and made sense of in the cloud. I think the Nike+iPod thing also does roughly the same but also like Fitbit, I wonder how much of the data will be available to reuse, share and takeaway? Your creating the data and although they are doing the analysis and processing, is it really a fair swap? I mean once they have the data its entirely possible for them to find trends across multiple users and offer advertising, discounts, etc to those users. So revenue shouldn't be a problem. But if these guys were to make the data available again, you could just imagine the kind of services and applications 3rd parties will make. Something I was alerted to a while back was the amount of services which are offered off the back of Basecamp's API and Data. Cloud/Utility computing is powerful and with good portability and interoperability it can work to form a good ecosystem for both the user and the provider. Unfortunately this is all being over looked or considered at a much later stage. No wonder people are very edgy about cloud computing.

Death to the ipod : Remixing for the participatory generation

[ Italic dj ]

At long last I've uploaded my Pacemaker presentation which a few people have seen at BarCampLeeds2 and BarCampBrighton3. I keep meaning to add more to the presentation, but I just find it easier if people simply just get up and have a go for 5mins. Enjoy...

XBMC (the ultimate media experience) now on all platforms!

[ Home entertainment ]

Hot off the internet's... Xbox Media Centre is now available for Linux, Mac and Windows platforms. Amazingly, there's even a ISO image which means people can try XBMC from a CD or USB drive without installing it. I'm so excited, that I'm attempting to download the binaries over my HSDPA connection on the train, as I pass through Rugby going to Manchester.



For everyone's never tried out XBMC, please give it a spin. You will be shocked how well everything just works and its still in Beta. I have always been a fan of XBMC and to tell the truth I can't imagine not using anything else... Right enough said, download it and try it out for yourself.

P2P Next (live end to end peer2peer streaming)

[ Home entertainment ]

John and George are better at explaining P2P-Next that myself, but I got this working the other day over my mobile phone's 3G/HSDPA connection and I was very impressed. Seriously its amazing and you can try it out for yourself on the trial.

p2p-next looks like anything else on display at IBC until you understand what it's doing. live p2p video streaming based on the tribler infrastructure. a potential solution to iplayer success...
great project involving BBC's george wright and the EBU amongst others. of course not just video can use this. nice work

Yammer - Microblogging for enterprise?

[ Socially Online ]

I'm not feeling Yammer.com. Someone suggested it, set it up and now everyones joining on it. Why Yammer over others I don't know. Don't get me wrong its a good idea, Twitter for enterprise but there's some things I'm not so sure about.

First one is the mobile access. Yes there's a iphone client (yawn!) but sms access is restricted to a few American carriers, so realisticlly after the Twitter announcement, yammer are not likely to offer SMS access to the UK. Which means our communication tool for the BBC is crippled. If Yammer were clever they would offer packages which companies pay for, so at least there's the opportunity for SMS/Text.

Second, does Yammer support the open micro-blogging standard? It certainly doesn't look like it. This is bad news, specially seeing how we now have about 70 BBC people using it now. I'm sure tomorrow it will double again.

Third, I did look through the Yammer terms and conditions which seemed ok-ish from a portability and licensing point of view. They have ATOM/RSS feeds for most things but where's the API people? Come on, this is becoming un-acceptable already.

Forth and last for now. What about Laconi.ca? Not only is it enterprise friendly, strictly supports the open microblogging standard and is moving to pure XMPP but it also federates with other services. I was trying to explain federation to someone the other day and they pointed out it works like usenet, email and irc (which bodes well, I think). Anyway, the next thing makes me sure Yammer isn't the right path is Twhirl's new support for Laconi.ca. There's something about the strict tight line between internal and external, which is interesting. At least with laconi.ca, its possible to blend the line in a organised way, but I want to know why I can't use my OpenID and why I can't import BBC people off my friends list elsewhere.

Oh I just noticed James has also blogged about the same thing but he has a totally different view point.

A couple of interesting features found recently

[ General computing ]

This little feature, submits the current song to last.fm and uses its unique database to recommend which tunes to play next. Its simple, effective and I've not seen anything like it anywhere else till itunes 8 introduced the genius feature.

This took me by surprise, I was sending a email and mentioning a attachment from a previous email but Evolution decided to ask me the above question. I got to say it was well received although it was wrong.

CERN's Large Hadron Collider (everything is fine)

[ Science and Theory ]

All the ball about melting down the earth, starting a huge black hole or blowing a hole in time and space. Has finally been silenced. Everything is fine and yes we are still here.

Sharing critical documentaries

[ Science and Theory ]

Saw this on Rocketboom today (yes I still watch it). Its a guy who gives away copies of documentaries like Sicko on DVD in a Subway station in New York. It seems like all the films he's copying and giving away are rights cleared (except maybe Sicko). Anyway I thought it was a great way to educate and enlighten people. Also get people talking and debating. He describes at the end how people will stand around and start talking to each other about the films and there meaning.

Without going into much detail, one of the elements for the ARG a few of us are still working on, includes the mass distribution of information in a public area. This might be a really good solution.