Qflix technology for burning movie DVDs supported by major studios

Concerns about piracy have hampered consumers' ability to buy and burn to DVD digital versions of movies from the internet, but a new Hollywood-backed technology and licensing arrangement from Sonic Solutions Inc. could change that.

Sonic Solutions' Qflix ads a standard digital lock -- called a content scrambling system -- to writable or rewriteable DVDs. DVD players have the digital "key" to unlock the content, although it will require consumers to purchase DVDs and compatible DVD burners compliant with the system.

Currently, Verbatim Corp. is working with Sonic Solutions to provide compatible discs, Movielink will have compatible movies for download, and Walgreens is just one of a number of retail kiosks that can burn DVDs for customers. With the Qflix system, customers can have an entire season's worth of a TV show or their favorite movie burned to DVD while they shop. Wal-Mart has also discussed the possibility of providing their own online downloading service or movie-burning kiosks.

This is not the first time a CSS system has been tried. A similar system was tested at the movie downloading service CinemaNow, but a limited library and playback problems plagued the trial.

Although it is backed by Hollywood, studios have shied away from CSS in the past because they feared that making DVD burning too easy would contribute to piracy. Sonic Solutions has been trying to get studios to authorize a "download to burn" option for movies for the past three years. With Qflix, moviemakers could place restrictions on consumers such as using the Microsoft Windows Media system to limit the maximum number of times a movie can be burned.

"We are pleased and encouraged to see efforts like Sonic's creation of Qflix that addresses the need for industry standard protection," Warner Bros. chief technology officer Chris Cookson said in a statement.

All that remains now is for studios to establish costs for the service that will protect their profits without deterring customers.

San Francisco startup unveils device able to create a broadband hot spot in your car

When Autonet Mobile Inc. releases it's new Wi-Fi/3G cellular device in March, you'll no longer have to hunt for broadband hotspots in order to use your computer's wireless broadband connection.

According to spokespersons for the San Francisco-based startup, the device plugs into a car's cigarette lighter adapter and turns the whole vehicle into a wireless internet hot spot and is as reliable as a home router.

"Our thought was to turn the car into a hot spot so people could have the same experience in their car as in their home or office," said Autonet Mobile CEO Sterling Pratz.

The system will probably be available in rental cars before going on the market. Avis recently told the New York Times that it plans to offer the system for about $11 extra a day as soon as it becomes available. Pratz said he couldn't confirm that, but said the device should go on sale to the public sometime in the spring. Pratz said corporate IT divisions would probably get the most use out of the device, because it would mean mobile workers would not need to hunt down Wi-Fi hotspots in order to keep in contact with their home office.

Cost for the device is projected at about $399, and will work on either Sprint or Verizon wireless services, automatically choosing the best available connection. Service will cost about $49 a month.

According to Pratz, users will be able to gain access on about 95 percent of U.S. roads, but he admitted that consumers' Wi-Fi-ready gadgets -- which include most laptops and other mobile devices such as smart phones -- wouldn't always get the best possible connection. Ideally, consumers will be able to access EV-DO connections at speeds of about 500 kilobits per second to 1 megabit per second, but in some areas the devices will quickly fall back on 1xRTT connections with speeds closer to 128 kilobits per second.

Pratz also said the system is able to avoid interference from other Wi-Fi networks since the device is never more than five feet away, he said, the intensity of the Wi-Fi in the car prevents it from jumping networks. It also has built-in security. The link between the system and Autonets' network operation center is encrypted using a system akin to a virtual private network, and Pratz said it was also compatible with corporate VPNs. Traveling speeds are unlikely to be an issue, said Pratz, as he claimed the system had been tested at highway speeds and much higher.

"I was with a partner and we were going 120 miles per hour and it worked just fine," said Pratz, who is a former racecar driver. "(My partner) didn't like it too much, though. He was running a network test and looked up and saw that it was working well but let me know he didn't like going that fast."

More software companies embracing the open source model

Software companies are just beginning to realize that miserly protection of software code is not always as lucrative as giving it away and participating in certain open-source software practices instead.

Open-source software -- code that is available for use or modification at no charge -- is growing in popularity among software companies. IBM, Sun Microsystems and other big names in the software niche all have some sort of open-source product offering. Even Microsoft has adopted some open-source elements. One company, Aras, will be releasing the code for its design application, which was written exclusively with Microsoft technology and will be hosted on the software giant's CodePlex code-sharing site. Aras' code makes up a product lifecycle management program, and is designed to structure the service and design of manufactured products.

Since open-source code is given away for free, the monetary return of open-source content comes from charging for technical and other support, software updates or a more feature-intensive, upgraded version of the free software.

But open-source content is not just another, more popular way to make money. It is also a way to get your product noticed when it ordinarily would just be one of many. PLM programs such as Aras' are usually quite costly, but the company hopes the gamble of giving the content away for free will allow them to break into a market that is currently dominated by big names such as Dassault Systemes and Parametric Technology. Irish company Iona Technologies has recently been facing financial difficulties, but the company hopes that its implementation of some open-source elements will show it can keep up with industry trends and give it visibility, although the move has not brought in any money just yet.

Not all companies subscribe to open-source content 100 percent like Aras does. Some companies pick and choose the aspects of open-source that work best for them. OpenMFG regularly gets requests from venture capitalists to offer 100 percent open-source content, but the company has not seen any reason to yet. Their customers are not clamoring for it and the current hybrid model -- some is open-source content, some is closed-source -- is working for them. Also, OpenMFG CEO Ned Lilly said in a C-Net interview that many companies make the mistake of using open-source to bring back programs that didn't sell in the past. He said that, when the programs fail again, companies would think that open source didn't work instead of looking to traditional problems such as program errors or insufficient customer support.

According to a C-Net interview with analyst Raven Zachary of the 451 Group, the long-term financial success of open-source products is not yet certain, but the software market's interest in the content is strong, and it hadn't failed a business yet.

Roomba maker launches programmable robot for hobbyists, students

The robot-maker iRobot, perhaps best known for its Roomba autonomous vacuum, is giving students and hobbyists the chance to order around their own robots with the programmable "Create."

The Create is based on the aforementioned Roomba -- and its floor-mopping cousin Scooba -- and thus comes equipped with the wheels, motors and proximity sensors that keep the cleaner bot from getting stuck in corners or careening down stairs. Absent, though, are the brushes and fluid tanks used for cleaning, which leaves room for amateur robot-makers to attach arms, cameras or anything else they can imagine. While iRobot plans to sell attachments for the Create, the company expects most users will build their own add-ons.

"This isn't a toy or a plug-and-chug thing," said iRobot co-founder Helen Grenier. "It is a programmable robot for students and robot enthusiasts."

The Create is set to ship with a $129.99 price tag, and a command module with an 8-bit processor will be available separately for $59.99, according to iRobot product manager John Billington.

Even prior to its official release, iRobot engineers and university students have put the Create through its paces. Some students from the University of California, Davis have programmed their Create to pickup socks, and another Create has been programmed to open the fridge and fetch beverages. One group even found a way to turn their Create into a vehicle, albeit only for rodents. Their robot is attached to a plastic hamster ball, and when a rodent moves inside the ball, it sends navigation commands to the Create.

Grenier said of the rodent-controlled robot, "I think it was particularly creative in an ironic way."

Plastic circuitry breakthrough may revolutionize electronics industry

Researchers from the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory have a chance to revolutionize the electronics industry if they can develop plastic semiconductors.

The idea is to replace the silicon wafers in standard microchips with layers or circuitry on plastic substrates. While the concept of plastic semiconductors may seem like a pipe dream, Cambridge-based startup Plastic Logic has been talking about commercializing the technology since 2000. The company is putting money where it's mouth is, too, as it has more than $100 million worth of investment funds for a factory that it plans to open in Dresden, Germany.

The technology has "tremendous potential," said Morry Marshall, vice-president for strategic technologies at Phoenix semiconductor research group Semico, adding that it was a "breakthrough that is waiting to happen."

The final product should be a plastic sheet roughly the same size as a piece of A4 sized paper, being produced at a rate of about 2.2 million a year. They will be composed of polyethylene terephthalate -- the same type of plastic used to make soft drink bottles -- and initially supplied to other companies as the basis for pieces of "electronic paper," which can display the pages of thousands of books.

We hope to make it as easy to carry around large amounts of written information using devices based on our technology as it is now to have easy access to large amounts of music using an iPod or MP3 player," said Hermann Hauser, one of Plastic Logic's founders and a Cavendish Laboratory alumnus.

The proposed plastic semiconductors will have one disadvantage compared to traditional silicon-based substrates: There is between 5 and 10 micrometers (1 micrometer is 1 millionth of a meter) between adjacent circuitry lines in the plastic semiconductors, whereas the same space in traditional semiconductors is measured in nanometers (1 nanometer is a billionth of a meter). However, Plastic Logic Chief Executive Officer John Mills said that they are developing plastic circuits with only 60 nanometers between adjacent circuitry lines.

If they could be made smaller, plastic microchips could be used for tasks for which it would not be cost-effective to employ silicon microchips. For example, a toy could have a surface where it could display its own instruction manual.

"Plastic electronics could lead to a fundamental revolution in the way the electronics industry evolves", said Mr Hauser, who also said he would not be surprised if Plastic Logic's chief scientist Henning Sirringhaus was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work in the field.

The Cavendish Laboratory has been lauded for it's discoveries during the past 136 years, including the genetic building blocks known as DNA and the electron.

Faulty software may have destroyed Mars orbiter, says NASA

NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiting craft stopped responding to commands in November, the administration announced Wednesday, one day after officials told scientists that the craft may have been in for disaster since faulty software was uploaded to it during the summer.

NASA has said it is creating an internal investigative board to look into whether improperly coded software commanded the surveyor to aim its heat-shedding radiator directly at the sun and overheat the battery, according to quotes from John McNamee, NASA deputy program manager for Mars exploration at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, on the NASA Watch web site.

"We think that the failure was due to a software load we sent up in June of last year," McNamee was quoted as saying at the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group meeting Tuesday. "This software tried to synch up two flight processors. Two addresses were incorrect -- two memory addresses were overwritten. As the geometry evolved, we drove the (solar) arrays against a hard stop and the spacecraft went into safe mode. The radiator for the battery pointed at the sun, the temperature went up, and battery failed. But this should be treated as preliminary."

Mike Adams, a NASA critic and technologist, was convinced that the faulty software was the direct cause of the problem.

"NASA has a long and hilarious history of sending billions of dollars of hardware into space to be destroyed or disabled by bad software," Adams said. "Poorly tested software nearly doomed the Mars rovers from the outset, and NASA crashed a satellite onto the Mars surface in the late 1990s due to a software calculation error. This latest incident, the loss of the Mars orbiter, only underscores the software quality control problems at this bloated agency that burns up billions of taxpayer dollars every time it loads bad code into expensive hardware.

"I have advice for NASA: Start testing your software before uploading it to satellites," he said.

According to NASA Mars Exploration Program Director Doug McCuistion, the investigative board is analyzing several other causes aside from the software error, including the fact that the orbiter is 10 years old. A report from the board is expected in a couple of months, McCuistion said, but he noted that the real problem might never be identified.

Advanced "multi-touch" touch-screen interface could eliminate the keyboard and mouse

The computers of the future might be nothing more than display screens if the full potential of multi-touch interfaces is realized.

As demonstrated by New York University consulting research scientist and Perceptive Pixel founder Jeff Han at the 2006 Technology Entertainment Design (TED) conference, multi-touch technology allows a user (or users) to affect the screen with as many fingers as possible at the same time. This makes typing, magnification of pictures, windows and text, as well as shaping images on the screen, possible with intuitive hand movements. For example, one application Han demonstrated allowed him to quickly finger-draw crude puppets onto a large touch screen and then animate them with finger movements.

Previous touch screens have used technology such as resistive metal coatings that register changes in electrical current at the point of contact or spring mounted strain gauges, but those only allowed the software to process a single touch at a time. On the Perceptive Pixel touch screen, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) line the edges of a 6-millimeter-thick piece of clear acrylic, reflecting infrared light along predictable paths on the screen's surface, a phenomenon known as total internal reflection. When something touches the screen, the light disperses outside of the surface from the contact point. A camera behind the acrylic captures the light diffused from any and all contact points, and image-processing software interprets the touches in real time.

In the future, Han said, he hopes that the technology will pave the way for large interactive whiteboards and touch-screen tables and walls that multiple users can interface with. Han said that this is the most interesting application of the technology, since a group of users could all collaborate on one project, on one screen, at the same time.

The first wall-sized version of Perceptive Pixel's multi-touch screen is set to go to an undisclosed U.S. military customer within the month.