MediaGoblin

MediaGoblin is a free software media publishing platform that anyone can run. You can think of it as a decentralized alternative to Flickr, YouTube, SoundCloud, etc. It’s also:

  • The perfect tool to show and share your media!
  • Building tools to empower the world through decentralization!
  • Built for extensibility. Multiple media types, including video support!

via MediaGoblin.

The Tiny Box That Lets You Take Your Data Back From Google

For open source developer Johannes Ernst, what the world really needs is a simple device that anyone can use to take their data back from the wilds of the internet. So he designed the Indie Box, a personal web server preloaded with open source software that lets you run your own web services from your home network–and run them with relative ease. Any system administrator will tell you that setting up a server is just the first step. Maintaining it is the other big problem. Indie Box seeks to simplify both, with an option to fully automate all updates and maintenance tasks, from operating system patches to routine database migrations.

via Out in the Open: The Tiny Box That Lets You Take Your Data Back From Google | Enterprise | WIRED.

A completely assembled device costs $500.

This is just a linux box with standard server packages installed and probably a customized management system.  Running your own web server does not take your data back from Google unless you run your own search engine.   The main type of data Google retains for its customers is email.  Running your own email server does keep your personal information from Google.  However, from the article:

For now, it won’t include an e-mail server since spam filters make it so hard to run one from home.

Glenn Greenwald: how the NSA tampers with US-made internet routers

But while American companies were being warned away from supposedly untrustworthy Chinese routers, foreign organisations would have been well advised to beware of American-made ones. A June 2010 report from the head of the NSA‘s Access and Target Development department is shockingly explicit. The NSA routinely receives – or intercepts – routers, servers, and other computer network devices being exported from the US before they are delivered to the international customers.

via Glenn Greenwald: how the NSA tampers with US-made internet routers | World news | The Guardian.

Music Distributor Claims Right to Monetize JFK Speech

Somehow the system has ‘awarded’ Believe Digital and Harley & Muscle “the rights” to go around monetizing this particular JFK speech based on their remix of the work more than 50 years later. That may have happened because speeches themselves don’t qualify for ContentID, potentially designating Harley & Muscle as the original publisher. However, those very same rules could also exclude their track from ContentID, but clearly didn’t.

via Music Distributor Claims Right to Monetize JFK Speech | TorrentFreak.

Mobile is burning, and free-to-play binds the hands of devs who want to help

Recent data shows 20 percent of mobile games get opened once and never again. 66 percent have never played beyond the first 24 hours and indeed most purchases happen in the first week of play. Amazingly only around two to three percent of gamers pay anything at all for games, and even more hair-raising is the fact that 50 percent of all revenue comes from just 0.2 percent of players.

This is a statistically insignificant amount of happy gamers and nothing that gives you a basis to make claims about “what people want”. I think it just as likely that mobile’s orgy of casual titles is due to simple bandwagon-ism or, in other words, not knowing what people want.

via Mobile is burning, and free-to-play binds the hands of devs who want to help | Polygon.

The oRouter Is A Tor-Powered Linux Box That Secures Your Internet Connection

As an end user, the process of using the oRouter is designed to be exceedingly simple. It’s zero configuration, meaning that you plug it in and then connect to the Wi-Fi network it provides. Unlike the Tor download, it requires no additional software in order to work. Once connected, as you browse the web and use online services, you’re actually using Tor (via Wi-Fi), thereby securing your communications from eavesdropping. In addition, for an extra layer of security, the oRouter’s MAC address (hardware address) changes every 10 minutes.

via The oRouter Is A Tor-Powered Linux Box That Secures Your Internet Connection | TechCrunch.

us8676045 – Photography lighting (Amazon) – Issued Patent

Photographing subjects against a white background, where that background is lit to, in effect, be overexposed and thus providing what is known as a high key image is a standard technique. see the following link for more info.. in fact looking at the pictorial description it looks remarkably similar..

http://photography.tutsplus.com/tutorials/the-complete-beginners-guide-to-shooting-high-key–photo-2949

via us8676045 – Photography lighting (Amazon) – Issued Patent – PRIOR ART REQUEST – Ask Patents.

Observations of an Internet Middleman

That leaves the remaining six peers with congestion on almost all of the interconnect ports between us. Congestion that is permanent, has been in place for well over a year and where our peer refuses to augment capacity. They are deliberately harming the service they deliver to their paying customers. They are not allowing us to fulfil the requests their customers make for content.

Five of those congested peers are in the United States and one is in Europe. There are none in any other part of the world. All six are large Broadband consumer networks with a dominant or exclusive market share in their local market. In countries or markets where consumers have multiple Broadband choices (like the UK) there are no congested peers.

via Observations of an Internet Middleman | Beyond Bandwidth.

Shouldn’t a broadband consumer network with near monopoly control over their customers be expected, if not obligated, to deliver a better experience than this?

Symantec And Security Starlets Say Anti-Virus Is Dead

“The overall detection by anti-virus software in January was disappointing — only 70.62 percent. For February it is even worse — only 64.77 percent was detected. And in March the average detection was 73.56 percent. That might not sound too bad but it means that 29 percent, 35 percent and 26 percent was not detected,” the company’s report read.

via Symantec And Security Starlets Say Anti-Virus Is Dead.