Lovingly Created through Hours of work at an Xbox controller by my friend.
Why should you care about RFID?
Wiki Says:
Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) is a method of remotely storing and retrieving data using devices called RFID tags/transponders. An RFID tag is a small object, such as an adhesive sticker, that can be attached to or incorporated into a product. RFID tags contain antennas to enable them to receive and respond to radio-frequency queries from an RFID transceiver. Link
So why is it problem?
Well the technology itself is very powerful and useful and lends it self to all sorts of difficult tasks such as stock taking, that when tagged using RFID would allow the stock to simply pushed through a scanner and that would be it.
It also allows supermarkets to create super-simple self-checkout systems; put all your stuff in the trolley, push it through the checkout and pay. No scanning, waiting or weighing to make sure you’ve scanned everything.
But what if you lost the paper tag on clothes and other items and it was made straight into the product, what then. Well we save on paper, but all shops have readers for these RFID Tags. How much would it take to build up a complete picture of your life. All your clothes are tagged so you go in one shop they see your wearing a designer shirt, there’s a screen in-front of the door and that changes giving you an offer only you and you alone can use, for a particular designer shirt. You decide not to buy it and go to another store and they do the same. but all this data is store on a de-centrilised network of computers in each store. It wouldn’t take much for a person to go to each store ask for there details (perfectly acceptable under the DPA) and then piece it all together and what do you have?
A complete picture of what you bought, when you bought, for how much, and whether you paid for it with your RFID enabled Credit Card.
Thats another thing with RFID enabled credit/ID Cards you would be able to nab somebody’s card details by putting a reader near a persons pocket. The data would be encrypted but there would always be organizations that would fined away to get your details and run away with your cash.
We are putting so much information about ourselves out there on technologies that could easily give it all up to a criminal or anybody savvy enough to join the technologies up. The UK already has more camera’s per square mile than any other country in europe (possibly even the world) So will the vision of 1984 be realized or will become more aware of all these technologies and protect ourselves against theft and improper use of all this data.
Apple Computer Inc. Now Apple Inc.
It certainly has been a big afternoon/morning (depending on where you live) for Apple. Finally the iPhone sees the light of day and my god was it worth the weight, more information on the Apple TV (iTV) and all the usual fanfare.
I wasn’t expecting the keynote to end without the usual iLife and iWork Updates (though it does save my wallet) I was already and prepared to shell out for it. I can only imagine that some sort of update will be coming with Leopard to entice me, not that I Really need that much enticing.
Apple Inc. Well done, you still manage to prove the rumors right about something but wrong about the actual hardware itself and also have put to bed the most recurring rumor ever.
BBC NEWS | Technology | BBC moves to file-sharing sites
BBC NEWS | Technology | BBC moves to file-sharing sites
We are starting to see a turn for the better, we are hopefully emerging the other side of sharing music is bad for the industry phase and the industry is now seeing the potential with the p2p networks.
The BBC has always had its eye on the ball with this sort of thing, podcast, video podcasting, so it comes of no surprise to me that there the first really serious content provider that people want/already share.
Shame its only the US, the BBC does stand for British Broadcasting Corporation, what’s going on america first! Next they’ll pull a sony “historically people in europe don’t mind waiting for the latest technology”
Merry Christmas
Does Blogging Improve Your College Work?
I have been pondering this one for a while and I just can’t seem to get it resolved in my mind, like most things its double edged.
In my case i think that blogging has significantly improved my written (pity I didn’t pick a-level english) I also find it easier to write longer more in-depth things that I would ordinarily just leave well alone.
Think of it, outside of the blogging context though. You write lots, you get better at writing, blogging is just an extension of that writing skill. You then have the flip side, the fact that you can get so into the blogging and other related things on the web that you then spend less time working and more time blogging. The key would seem to be getting the right balance of blogging and work, lets say the blog to work ratio. In my case I would love to spend every living moment making stuff for the web, and blogging. Alas I need to work because I aren’t doing particularly well on the maths side of things but Computing is entirely other story.
Sorry for disjointed nature of this post, and the fact it would seem to posting for postings sake but I think it’s genuinely instresting to actually see what benefits you get from blogging. We all want to blog or do we?
“Everyone thinks they have something to say, until they’re put on stage and asked to say it.” Mr Plummer
Improving Once Again
Whilst I can’t take credit for the plugins and additional things that I have bolted on (I can take credit for making them play nice together) I have got rid of the sociable plug in the favor of a prettier system that has abit of the web 2.0 about it. Its Share It! Link Also icons from http://shareicons.com/
Now its even simpler to get the content you like from here to wherever you want, I think I will try and do something similar with the RSS syndication stuff if I Get chance.
Cyber Laws – Are there any that work?
We are entering a time were computers run our lives, we put blind faith into them (do you take a regular backup?) and also are starting to increase the amount of transactions we take online, with the populisation of internet shopping and internet banking in no small contributed by eBay and PayPal.
We (depending were you read this blog) live in countries with few or no laws on how to protect ourselves online, fair enough there’s the DPA in the UK which goes somewhere near but there is no clear definition of what constitutes hacking or any other cyber-offence.
It stupidly simple to get access to a computer that you don’t own that its scary. You can take a standard off the shelf USB stick, push it in a computer it will create you a Administrator account a remote user account and give you the password to anybody who logs into that machine. Many homes now are switching to wi-fi indeed BT offer there Home Hub which is wireless with all there packages, albeit with a very simple 64-bit encryption assigned to it, but who’s responsibility is it to secure there wi-fi, I am firmly in the camp that if you leave it open its fair game to anybody, but just think about what you do online in a particular day and how much somebody could find about you it just a few hours on your network. Its enough to steal your Identity and rob you blind, yet many people just don’t understand the scope of the problem.
It’s all well and good knowing that these things are problems but how do we stop this from happening in the first place. As yet I haven’t been able to come up with a single thing that could be feasibly enforced, or surrendering our own privacy to some higher power (which I don’t think anybody in there right mind would be comfortable with. This is a problem that is almost as big as Global Warming if we manage to survive what ever apocalyptic event we make. Yet, we continue for the most part ignoring the fact it is a problem and how it would effect you if your identity was cloned and bank accounts cleaned, not a particularly nice thought.
The Christmas Spirit
Something to get that christmas cheer going:
Download “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” (mp3)
from “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer”
by Dr. Elmo
Laughing Stock
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at eMusic
Buy at RealNetworks / Rhapsody
Buy at Napster
Buy at Karma Download- Stream from RealNetworks / Rhapsody
The Best of Both Worlds
Parallels have release a new BETA of there Virtualization Application for mac os x with many updates, the biggest of which being “Coherence” this things rocks, so much its untrue.
How about Windows Taskbar at the bottom of the page and mac os x everywhere else, thats right the holy grail of being able to run everything you could ever want has been acheived. Apples’ decision to switch to intel seems all but justified now.
Running windows apps as if they were mac apps without have to have a separate window open is genius, how the hell they manage to do it is beyond me. What I do know is Macs are most definitely going from strength to strength and a actually think Parallels would be a welcomed acquisition for Apple, because Leopard could take this stuff and run to such a level were you can no longer tell you are virtualizing windows. For example download a file with safari that happens to be an .exe, double click it and windows opens it. Simple elegant and apple all over.
Come apple this is certainly a feature i would love to see in Leopard (if it isnt already in there)
forget office, Oo.org get ThinkFree Office
I have dabbled in many office applications google’s offerings microsoft open office and some i cant even remember.
I am amazed at ThinkFree Office it is exactly what a web app should be and the learning curve is 0 cos it looks just like office on you desktop. Wel done guys, and ThinkFree Office is my default Office of choice.
And I got this from 5 minutes using it.