Have Laptop Will Travel

OLPC begins “Give One, Get One” project

My favorite social responsibility organization, the One Laptop Per Child initiative, officially started its very useful “Give One, Get One” funding project.

This project essentially gives a computer to the person who purchases the said PC while also funding one other PC that will be given to a child in another country. The said project will last for 15 days. The amount given/donated is 399 dollars. As an additional incentive any participant who lives in the United States will get a free one year access to T-Mobile’s HotSpot broadband service.

The OLPC has said that it is committed to deliver these laptops to children within the holiday season although they also know how daunting this task will get so they have also said that there are no guarantees at this point. Only purchasers who were able to buy the laptops early will be sure of getting their units during the holidays.

As I have previously posted, Quanta Computer will be manufacturing the XO laptops. Mass production of the units actually started last week.

Pirate Bay to develop new P2P software

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.

Oink is no more

Ab ig blow was dealt to the global torrent community today when the popular music tracker Oink.cd was shut down by authorities.

Oink was an invite only music torrent site that has acquired a reputation for having some of the best music releases on the internet. It has become a haven for hardcore music fans — the type who needs a daily fix of new music and who want to listen to albums first on MP3s before deciding to buy albums.

the raid was done by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which has an affiliation with the RIAA. According to the IFPI, they conducted a two year investigation into Oink before mounting the raid. I’ve seen a newsfeed from the BBC regarding this raid and that “two year” claim seems highly suspect. A number of accusations were so obviously erroneous. First, Oink did not ask members to pay for a subscription. Second, Oink was only a tracker and never released the music files themselves.

I have  very firm stand about the insistence of the music industry to desperately implement copyright issues in a world that has already changed. The music industry should change its old, and obviously outdated practice and begin to change with the times.

Oink, you will be forever remembered.

MP3s now used for spam

Spammers are a wily lot. They will do anything just to send their junk on our inboxes. Veteran computer users can actually see the evolution of spam over the years as these people try to find new ways to send messages to the unsuspecting inboxes of internet users all over the world.

With broadband becoming the de riguer connection in many countries, file size is not a hindrance anymore for spammers. Because of this they are now employing the otherwise harmless mp3 format as a method of delivering their message. The growing practice now is for spammers to mass email MP3 files where the “spam” message is embedded as audio. It may sound high-tech, but really, it’s just another way to get around the spam filters of email inboxes.

The sizes of these files are larger than the usual spam you would receive — anywhere from 85kb to 147kb are used up. Additionally, the subject line of these emails are usually empty or may just contain Fwd:,  Re: or the filename of the MP3. Some may use more devious ways of making you open the file by using the names of famous bands or indicate that it is a ringtone.

I hope that this practice won’t be adopted by spammers though because this is going to potentially be a big thorn for us internet and email users.

Solar powered WiFi

One of the raison d’etres of having a laptop is taking advantage of WiFi and the ability to surf the internet wherever you are. For me, mobile surfing is one of the greatest technological leaps that we have made because it has really made information accessible to anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Of course, WiFi still costs money to operate. Yes, there are free WiFi hotzones but that doesn’t mean the operators of the network are not expending money to give you the privilege to look at the latest football scores over your macchiatto. They shoulder not only the WiFi subscription but also the accompanying costs of operating WiFi devices — electricity being a big factor to the overall expense.

Solis Energy claims to have the solution though. The Orlando-based company said that it can employ solar energy to power low wattage devices like WiFi routers, security cameras — even traffic lights and sensors. This is the kind of innovation that is really welcome in our time when global warming really poses a serious threat worldwide. An alternative source of energy that is one hundred per cent green and renewable is the way to go. Al Gore should have reason to smile when he reads about Solis.