Rafa Spoladore Ψ

Just a few weeks ago, we wrote about how Kickstarter was incredibly valuable not only as a pre-sales tool but as a way to prove marketability for investors. It appears that even some in Hollywood are recognizing this. In a bit of a surprise move, Warner Bros. has allowed the folks from the critically acclaimed (but viewer-challenged) TV show Veronica Mars to launch a massive Kickstarter campaign to prove that there's demand for a Veronica Mars movie. They put together a cute, mostly in-character video to explain the details: They need to hit $2 million to get the greenlight from Warner. The money will go into the budget of the film, which has the original actors and the show creator/writer returning (excitedly) to make this a reality after years of talking about the possibility but not having enough believers at Warner.

This is fascinating on a variety of levels. First, it serves as a simple reminder that Kickstarter works as a demand-confirmation tool. Second, and perhaps more interestingly, it suggests ways that traditional Hollywood can integrate with something like Kickstarter at times. While some of old world Hollywood likes to insist that Kickstarter could never be used to fund a "real" movie, it appears that some more progressive-thinking folks at Warner are willing to give this a shot. From show creator Rob Thomas' explanation:

Of course, Warner Bros. still owns Veronica Mars and we would need their blessing and cooperation to pull this off. Kristen and I met with the Warner Bros. brass, and they agreed to allow us to take this shot. They were extremely cool about it, as a matter of fact. Their reaction was, if you can show there’s enough fan interest to warrant a movie, we’re on board. So this is it. This is our shot. I believe it's the only one we've got. It's nerve-wracking. I suppose we could fail in spectacular fashion, but there's also the chance that we completely revolutionize how projects like ours can get made. No Kickstarter project ever has set a goal this high. It's up to you, the fans, now. If the project is successful, our plan is to go into production this summer and the movie will be released in early 2014.

It would appear that his nerves need not be wracked for all that long. Within just a few hours, many thousands of fans had jumped on board, and they'd already passed $1 million and were well on their way to $2 million, and probably significantly beyond that (there are still 30 days to go!) Separately, one of the things that doesn't get that much attention in crowdfunding campaigns is the importance of having cool rewards, and it looks like the Veronica Mars crew did a good job. They have a lot of options, with the lowest one being getting a script of the movie on the day it comes out. Surprisingly, they're also promising a digital download "a few days" after the movie's theatrical debut. That will be interesting to see in practice, since theaters have balked (stupidly) at showing films that have too small a "window" between theatrical release and digital release. Hopefully theaters aren't so short-sighted in this case, and will realize that many Veronica Mars fans will likely want to see the film on the big screen even if they're getting the digital version.

Other reward levels include the standard stuff like t-shirts, DVDs and posters (some of them signed), as well as more advanced options like voicemail or video greetings from the actors (Kristen Bell costs more, not surprisingly), hanging out on the set, a role in the movie, tickets to the premiere and more. What's impressive is that most of the high end items are sold out already -- within just a few hours of the launch.

Of course, this makes you wonder why Warner Bros. was so unsure that there would be a market for this movie in the first place. Still, kudos to the studio for being willing to jump on board with this kind of experiment.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

One thing we've talked about for years is that lawmakers are notoriously bad at thinking through the unintended consequences of legislation they put forth. They seem to think that whatever they set the law to be will work perfectly, and that there won't be any other consequences. This is one reason why we're so wary of simple "fixes" even when the idea or purpose sound good up front. "Protecting artists" sounds good... unless it destroys the kinds of services artists need. Cybersecurity sounds good, unless it actually makes it easier to violate your privacy. And, now, people are realizing that not only may cybersecurity rules like CISPA be awful for privacy, but they could potentially lead to more "cyber" attacks, as companies look to "hack back" against those who attack them. As Politico describes:

The idea is known as "active defense" to some, "strike-back" capability to others and "counter measures" to still more experts in the burgeoning cybersecurity field. Whatever the name, the idea is this: Don't just erect walls to prevent cyberattacks, make it more difficult for hackers to climb into your systems — and pursue aggressively those who do.

So, how would cybersecurity rules create more hacking? Well, possibly by encouraging this kind of behavior by providing some amount of cover for it. The Cybersecurity bill in the Senate last year included an undefined allowance for "counter measures." CISPA doesn't explicitly mention that, but some in the security field are interpreting the bill to provide some amount of cover for such "counter measures" in which they could "perform hacks against threats." But, if you're trying to discourage online attacks, that seems like a problem. The likelihood of someone attacking the wrong target is quite high, and it could create quite a mess.

Thankfully, the folks behind CISPA suggest that they're willing to change the bill to make it more explicit that such countermeasures are not allowed, but until that's in place, it's a serious concern:

Some of those fears have reached Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the chamber's Intelligence Committee and one of CISPA's lead authors. In fact, panel aides told POLITICO they're open to revising the relevant definitions in the bill. And Rogers himself this year has railed on the idea of an aggressive active defense, describing it as a "disaster for us" at a time when the country's digital defenses remain subpar.

Even if they fix this particular hole, it's these kinds of things that should worry all of us about broad laws that provide things like blanket immunity over ill-defined concepts like "cybersecurity" and "cyberattacks." The likelihood of it being abused is quite high, especially in an ever changing technology world. Just look at computer laws like the CFAA and ECPA, which cover various computer crimes and privacy today. Both are ridiculously outdated, with concepts that are laughable by any rational view today. And thus, there are massive unintended consequences associated with both laws. Before we rush into creating new laws with big broad vague terms, perhaps we should focus on fixing the old laws and proceeding with caution on any new ones.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Le moddeur Ben Heck a encore frappé avec ce mod à base de NES qui renferme un écran LCD, transformant la célèbre console de Nintendo en exactement la même console, mais transportable. Steve Jobs serait encore de ce monde, il l'aurait commercialisée en nous la présentant comme une révolution, j'en suis certain !

En tout cas, plus besoin de TV pour jouer à vos anciens jeux 8-bit.

Marrant !

Et surtout bien pensé, car pour une fois, l'aspect d'origine de la console qui fait tout son charme est conservé.

Source

The Exploratorium writes:

The comet Pan-STARRS is currently in view! Did you glimpse it last night?

This beautiful photo was taken by Exploratorium Staff member Adam Esposito last night (March 12) from the Berkeley Hills with a telephoto lens. Uranus is actually right near the comet as well. Mars in the clouds below.

TO VIEW TONIGHT: most of USA and northern hemisphere should look west, about 30 minutes after sunset. You may be able to see it below the crescent moon. It’s close to the sun so only after sunset is it briefly visible in the darkening sky.

We were able to see it last night with a Galileoscope, in spite of haze and an aggressive tree-line, by locating the moon and panning left. SpaceWeather.com has a helpful sky map, too.

Energy is getting more and more expensive, and experts are predicting record electricity and heating prices. A software platform promises to lighten the load for households and businesses by making it easier for consumers to put renewables to good effect.

The combination of a symbol and a numeric calorie count on a menu is the most effective way to influence patrons to select lower-calorie items.

Many discoveries in physics came as a big surprise – for example the phenomenon, that some materials loose almost all their electrical resistance at low temperatures, or that others become superconductors at unexpectedly high temperatures. In the past it was mainly due to theoreticians to develop models explaining these unusual properties. Unfortunately it is not possible to have a direct look into a solid state crystal and follow up the motion of charge carriers as this process happens at extremely short time and length scales.

Physicists at Virginia Tech, as part of a collaboration with U.S. and Chinese researchers, took part in one of 2012's top scientific breakthroughs according to Science magazine. It's a breakthrough that could have a significant impact on physics and the universe as we understand it.

Há uma tendência horrível e crescente nos cantos escuros da internet: usar ferramentas de administração remota (RAT) para tomar controle de webcams ao redor do mundo.

O ArsTechnica fez uma longa e excelente matéria sobre o mundo sombrio de hackers de webcam. Eles se encontram em fóruns como o HackForums e são chamados entre si de “ratters”. No fórum, além de trocar imagens conseguidas nas webcams dos “escravos” (é assim que eles chamam as vítimas), eles também trocam dicas – de como, por exemplo, desativar o led que indica que a webcam está ativada e, assim, continuar observando a pessoa do outro lado da câmera sem que ela perceba. Eis alguns trechos da matéria do Ars:

“A mulher é vista a milhares de milhas de distância no computador do hacker. A máquina tela está infectada com uma ferramenta de administração remota (RAT) que dá acesso à tela da mulher, à webcam, aos arquivos, ao microfone. Ele observa ela e o bebê através de uma pequena janela de controle aberta no seu PC, e então decide se divertir um pouco. Ele entra em uma série de sites pornográficos e observa eles aparecem no computador da mulher…”

“Operadores RAT tem praticamente controle total dos computadores infectados; eles navegam entre as imagens particulares da pessoa em busca de fotos erótias para compartilhar online. Eles até têm estratégias para observar onde as mulheres podem guardar as fotos que podem comprometê-las”

“Para muitos ratters, no entanto, a espionagem permanece mais como um jogo. Pode ser um hobby estranho, mas aparentemente não tem nada demais invadir a máquina de alguém, vasculhar arquivos pessoais e assistir silenciosamente por trás das telas. ‘Muitas das minhas escravas são entediantes”, escreve um ratter aspirante. “Queria conseguir mais garotas com webcams. É mais excitante quando você pode literalmente espionar alguém. Mesmo que essa pessoa não esteja tirando a roupa!”

“Um postador diz que já arquivou 200GB de material de suas escravas. ‘Na maior parte das vezes eu pego as melhores coisas (o que é engraçado, a coisa ‘boa’ [sexual) e categorizo (nome, endereço, senhas, etc.) apenas por diversão', ele diz. 'Não acho que esteja fazendo algo pervertido, é mais como um jogo, perseguição de gato e rato com bônus. A coisa estranha é, quando eu vejo a pessoa que espionei na vida real, e já passei por isso algumas vezes, e isso me faz rir, especialmente quando é alguém com um hábito bem estranho.'"

Por mais que a maioria das pessoas faça só por "diversão", alguns casos são bastante preocupantes - como uma mulher que não saiu do quarto por uma semana após ter seu laptop grampeado por um rapaz que usava as fotos dela como forma de extorsão. A matéria excelente do ArsTechnica tem muito mais informações e pode ser lida - em inglês - aqui. [Ars Technica]

Mario save the princess? Pfft.

Mike Mika says in the YouTube description for this video that his 3-year-old daughter wanted to be able to save Mario while playing Donkey Kong. Why not? She could play as Princess Toadstool in Super Mario Bros. 2, after all. Since that wasn't an option, he built a "Pauline Edition" hack so his daughter could battle Donkey Kong herself.

He hacked a ROM--a digital version of a game that lets you play on a modern rig--of Donkey Kong, replacing the princess frames with Mario and the Mario frames with Pauline.

So sweet. With this female-friendly Zelda hack, maybe we're seeing a trend.

t's among the most ancient of questions: What are the origins of life on Earth?

read more

The subatomic particle whose discovery was announced amid much fanfare last year, is looking "more and more" like it could indeed be the elusive Higgs boson believed to explain why matter has mass, scientists said Wednesday.

General Motors says it will hire 1,000 workers to staff an information technology center in suburban Phoenix.

New submitter gameweld writes "Software companies, such as Microsoft, create documentation for millions of topics concerning its APIs, services, and software platforms. Creating this documentation comes at a considerable cost and effort. And after all this effort, much documentation is rarely consulted (citation) and lacking enough examples (citation). A new study suggests that developers are increasingly consulting Stack Overflow and crowd-sourced sites over official documentation, using it as much as 50% of time. How should official documentation be better redesigned? What are the implications of software created from unruly mashups?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fermat's Last Theorem -- the idea that a certain simple equation had no solutions -- went unsolved for nearly 350 years until Oxford mathematician Andrew Wiles created a proof in 1995. Now, Case Western Reserve University's Colin McLarty has shown the theorem can be proved more simply.

read more

University of Chicago physicists have succeeding in creating a vortex knot -- a feat akin to tying a smoke ring into a knot. Linked and knotted vortex loops have existed in theory for more than a century, but creating them in the laboratory had previously eluded scientists.

read more

O SOMABRASIL, ferramenta para monitoramento das atividades agropecuárias que integra dados tabulares e informações geradas por satélites, ultrapassou a marca de mil usuários cadastrados neste mês de fevereiro.

In the third and final issue in a series focused on nuclear exits, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published by SAGE, turns its attention to the United States and looks at whether the country's business-as-usual approach may yet lead to a nuclear phase-out for economic reasons.

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online

An international study of wild insects finds that managed honeybees are not as successful at pollinating crops as wild insects, especially wild bees. Collected from 600 fields in 20 countries, the data suggest the continuing loss of wild insects in many agricultural landscapes is having negative consequences for crop harvests.

The study, published in a recent issue of Science, is an urgent call to maintain and manage pollinator diversity for long-term agricultural production.

The research team was comprised of 50 international scientists, including Dr. Lawrence Harder, professor in the Department of Biological Sciences (Bio) at the University of Calgary. They analyzed data from 41 crop systems around the world, including fruits, seeds, nuts and coffee to examine the consequences of having abundant wild pollinators for agricultural crops.

"Our study demonstrates that production of many fruit and seed crops that make diets interesting, such as tomatoes, coffee and watermelon, is limited because their flowers are not adequately pollinated," says Harder. "We also show that adding more honey bees often does not fix this problem, but that increased service by wild insects would help."

Before making fruits and seeds, the flowers of most crops need to receive pollen. Insects that visit the flowers enhance this process. Bees, flies, butterflies and other pollinators usually live in natural or semi-natural habitats, such as the edges of forests, hedgerows or grasslands.

As the abundance and diversity of pollinators decline, typically as a result of habitat loss, crops receive fewer visits from wild insects. This habitat loss is primarily due to land conversion for agricultural use.

The proportion of flowers producing fruits is considerably lower at sites with fewer numbers of wild insects visiting crop flowers. Our national heritage and agricultural harvest will likely be impacted by the reduction of wild insects in agricultural landscapes.

"Paradoxically, most common approaches to increase agricultural efficiency, such as cultivation of all available land and the use of pesticides, reduce the abundance and variety of wild insects that could increase production of these crops," says Harder. "Our study highlights the benefits of considering this paradox in designing and implementing agricultural systems."

The study findings suggest that new integrated management practices of both honeybees and wild insects will increase global yields of animal-pollinated crops. This, in turn, will promote long-term agricultural production. Such practices should include conservation or restoration of natural or semi-natural areas within croplands, promotion of a variety of land use, addition of diverse floral and nesting resources, and more prudent use of insecticides that can kill pollinators.

Well, it's been a couple of days, so I guess it's time to update you on the latest version of North Korean propaganda that tries to impress our sense of humor. You should recall that the reclusive nation released a bizarre video about the coming destruction of New York City, complete with video game footage from Modern Warfare 3. That was followed up by their brothers-in-dumb, the Iranian government, who thought the best way to show off their new flying machine was to photoshop its image over a mountain, rather then show it actually...you know...flying.

Well, North Korea is back at it, with another odd video, with all the effeminate flame animations you've come to expect and text that I sure as hell can't read. With that said, I'm sure the text says something about how the North Koreans have developed the latest in orc technology and elven code systems, being as how they decided to use the soundtrack for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion to set the mood.

I'd like to take this moment to offer a small bit of advice to my friends in Pyonyang. If you put a video out on YouTube to tell the rest of the world how crazy awesome powerful you are, so much so that you're going to smash America, part of that video should be to demonstrate that you can come up with an inspirational tune. I mean, if you can't even put together something like Call Me Maybe, it's kind of difficult to take your plans for our destruction seriously.

In the meantime, hey Bethesda? You guys want to DMCA this or are you laughing as hard as I am?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

A Intel Brasil pretende financiar pesquisas em universidades brasileiras na área de tecnologias da informação e comunicação para os setores de educação, energia e transporte

 

Acordo assinado entre a Intel Brasil, o Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação (MCTI) e o Ministério da Educação (MEC), nessa quarta-feira (27), prevê investimentos de R$ 300 milhões em pesquisa e desenvolvimento em tecnologias da informação e comunicação (TICs) em áreas de interesse nacional. A iniciativa faz parte do Programa Estratégico de Software e Serviços de Tecnologia da Informação (TI Maior), do governo federal, que tem como meta o incremento das atividades de TICs no País.

Divulgação / Senado Ampliar

• As pesquisas também abrange soluções de softwares, como ferramentas de visualização e simulação para extração de petróleo na camada do pré-sal

A medida deve envolver 300  pesquisadores, entre colaboradores, pesquisadores de universidades e bolsistas. Nos setores envolvidos, o foco será o desenvolvimento de soluções de softwares, como ferramentas de visualização e simulação para extração de petróleo na camada do pré-sal, softwares educacionais, computação de alto desempenho, tecnologias para emplacamento eletrônico de carros e soluções baseadas em tecnologia de ponta para aumentar a eficiência na gestão de trânsito de passageiros e carga.

“O primeiro aspecto positivo desse anúncio da Intel reside no fato de estarmos atraindo investimentos externos para a realização de atividades de P&D (pesquisa e desenvolvimento) no Brasil”, afirmou o ministro da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação, Marco Antonio Raupp. “Isso aumenta a participação do Brasil no cenário mundial da inovação”, acrescentou.

 

Pesquisas

Além de ampliar de forma significativa sua atuação na área de software e serviços no País, a empresa irá colaborar com universidades brasileiras para a renovação dos currículos dos cursos de ciência da computação e desenvolvimento de software, bem como para possibilitar o acesso de pesquisadores a laboratórios de computação de alto desempenho.

A expectativa da Intel é mobilizar até 300 pesquisadores, entre colaboradores, pesquisadores de universidades e bolsistas, para os próximos cinco anos, totalizando um investimento de R$ 300 milhões no Brasil. Trata-se do recorde para a empresa no que diz respeito a valores destinados a pesquisa e desenvolvimento no País em seus 25 anos de atuação.

• Conheça a implantação do software livre nos órgãos federais

Por sua vez, o governo se compromete a oferecer, por meio de edital, bolsas a estudantes e pesquisadores, dentro de um amplo programa de incentivos a atividades de P&D. Para a chamada, a ser lançada neste ano, estão previstos recursos da ordem de R$ 8 milhões, voltados também a outros empreendimentos alinhados ao TI Maior.

 

TI Maior

O Programa Estratégico de Software e Serviços de TI, o TI Maior, tem  a finalidade de fomentar a indústria de software e serviços na área de tecnologia da informação (TI) no Brasil.

Com investimentos de aproximadamente R$ 500 milhões para o período de 2012-2015, o TI Maior está estruturado em cinco pilares: desenvolvimento econômico e social, posicionamento internacional, inovação e empreendedorismo, produção científica, tecnológica e inovação, e competitividade.

• Mais de 22 mil bolsas de estudos foram concedidas para estudantes brasileiros
• Investidores dos EUA conhecem projetos brasileiros de tecnologia da informação

O TI Maior prevê ações, como a aceleração de empresas com base tecnológica, a consolidação de ecossistemas digitais; a preferência nas compras governamentais para softwares com tecnologia nacional; a capacitação de jovens para atuar na área de TI e atração de centros de pesquisa globais.

 

 

 

 

Fonte:
Ministério da Ciência Tecnologia e Inovação
Com Agência Brasil

Sabbetus writes "Bitcoin tops its previous all-time high of $31.91 and in doing so it proves to be quite a resilient virtual currency. To the supporters of Bitcoin this does not come as a surprise, since we have seen the likes of WordPress, Reddit and Mega embrace it. Recently Namecheap also confirmed that they will start accepting bitcoins. The new record price was reached on the same day that Mt. Gox, the world's largest Bitcoin exchange, reached an agreement with CoinLab to manage the exchange's operations in the U.S. and Canada." A far cry from the end of 2011.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

You can try as hard as you want, but a set of adamantium claws are never going to spring forth from your hands. Nor will you ever be able to control the weather, fly, teleport, or read someone's mind. The closest you'll ever get to being a real-life X-Men is mastering this set of steel throwing cards like Gambit, minus the fireworks and bō. More »

Low expectations for a happy future might actually propel you into old age.

An attention-grabbing new "docudrama" puts forth a very unusual theory.

That whole getting to the moon thing? Actually Yugoslavian.

At least that's the thesis of a "docudrama" trailer that's been making the rounds, especially among Internet users in the Balkans. Yugoslavia sold an operational spaceflight program to the United States in 1961, just before President John F. Kennedy announced American plans to go to the moon, the video says. It's called "Houston, We Have a Problem!" and it's racked up more than 960,000 views on YouTube:

Radio Free Europe talked to a couple experts who were doubtful.

"There's a lot of coincidence in time, but just because two things sort of happened one after the other does not necessarily mean that there's causation involved. There's a very big stretch involved here," Bill Barry, NASA's chief historian, said.

While talking with Radio Free Europe, the video's director and principal writer seemed to both stand behind the work and distance themselves from it. There's "some dramatization and fiction," the writer, Bostjan Virc, said. And from director Ziga Virc: "80 or 90 percent of things" in the trailer are "actually more or less confirmed facts."

The film is slated to come out in 2013. More or less.

[Radio Free Europe]

A researcher from North Carolina State University has developed a technique for creating high-density ceramic materials that requires far lower temperatures than current techniques -- and takes less than a second, as opposed to hours. Ceramics are used in a wide variety of technologies, including body armor, fuel cells, spark plugs, nuclear rods and superconductors.

read more

When a bubble of air rising through water hits a sheet of glass, it doesn't simply stop—it squishes, rebounds, and rises again, before slowly moving to the barrier. This seemingly simple process actually involves some knotty fluid mechanics. An international research team, including researchers at the A*STAR Institute of High Performance Computing, and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, has now unpicked this physical process.

Light is an oscillating wave of electric and magnetic fields. The way the electric field component interplays with the atoms in a material largely determines how light interacts with matter. With visible light, however, the influence of the magnetic component is usually much smaller. Arseniy Kuznetsov at the A*STAR Data Storage Institute, Singapore, and co‐workers have now created tiny spheres of silicon that can strongly interact with the magnetic field of visible-wavelength light. These engineered 'magnetic materials' enable new ways of controlling light at the nanoscale.

That seemingly far-off dream of a la carte cable consumption may be more imminent than you realize. Cablevision has announced its plans to sue Viacom for "illegally forcing purchase of programming services." In other words, they want to break up the bundle. More »