SUFFICIENTLY ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY

Australian government efforts to censor the internet are falling apart, basically because the filters don’t work and the ISPs therefore decline to participate. Major newspaper The Age reported that Communications Minister Stephen Conroy (and Labour Party senator) has said the filtering trials will no longer be live as had been promised. Instead, the trials will be “a closed network test and will not involve actual customers”.

A key piece of evidence cited by the ISPs was a study by the Australian Communications and Media Authority that found filters frequently let through content that should be blocked, incorrectly blocked harmless content, and slowed down network speeds by up to 87 percent. Read it for yourself here.

Government plans call for a two-tiered censorship system based on ISP filters. One would be compulsory and is supposed to block anything on a 10,000 URL blacklist administered by the ACMA. The other is optional and is intended to protect children from inappropriate content. “The plan is opposed by the Greens, Opposition, the internet industry, some child welfare advocates, consumers and online rights groups,” the article continues. “They fear the blacklist will be expanded to include the blocking of regular pornography, political views, gambling and pro-abortion sites.”

Anti-censorship protests took place in all seven Australian capital cities today (Saturday).

Open source peer-to-peer file sharing software LimeWire released an Alpha of LimeWire 5, which features a complete overhaul of its rather unfriendly user interface. If you’re geeky enough to care, you can read more about its background components here. But what’s particularly interesting is that it now integrates the free and open instant messaging service Jabber. This lets users chat, obviously, but it also allows for sharing files with individually chosen friends instead of opening up your share file to everyone else on LimeWire.

Researchers at the ATR Computational Neuroscience Lab are coming fascinatingly close to being able to literally see what people are thinking about. Dvice explained that magnetic resonance imaging underpins a technology that can reconstruct images from electrical signals in the retina and treated in the brain’s visual cortex. The Yomiuri Shimbun, which has more specifics on the research, reported that dreams as well as mental images are likely to be visualized in the future. The ability to watch other people’s dreams eclipses Twitter and YouTube for changing attitudes about personal privacy.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has posted an analysis of a document titled MPAA’s Key International Trade Issues. It was submitted to the Obama-Biden Transition Project, which made it available on its official website as part of its stated commitment to open government.

EFF’s analysis begins with this summary:

“Some of the MPAA’s agenda is reasonable, such as cracking down on commercial optical disc piracy. But much of it, if adopted, would result in a substantially less free and safe internet, at little or no actual benefit to the artists and workers the MPAA claims to represent.”

It concludes with the hope that Obama’s administration will “stand up to the MPAA’s lobbying.” But you should read up on this stuff for yourself and let Obama’s team know what you think.

Sony’s PlayStation 3 firmware upgrade 2.53 finally made its public appearance, and among other things it lets users watch full-screen Flash video. If you don’t realize why you should care, consider the potential for using the PS3 to enjoy entertainment beyond games. The console already is hooked up to the Internet and a TV, and now it’s possible to watch Hulu and YouTube in noticeably better quality than before. So how much longer do I have to wait before I can get Flash on my phone? (Via Electronista, CNet and lots of other places.)

Open source Gnutella p2p client FrostWire is gaining some traction for its FrostClick service, a new way for independent musicians to find their audience. The service puts an artist spotlight on the FrostWire welcome screen, offering an instant-play stream or a one-click download of as many free songs as the artist wishes, along with related external links.

FrostClick, which currently is promoting Audra Hardt, spoke to TorrentFreak about its first artist Sean Fornier. According to the piece, there were more than 25,000 downloads during the first weekend of the promotional offer despite the client’s limited reach and the artist’s relative anonymity. Fornier said on his blog, “My downloads have spiked tremendously since FrostClick / FrostWire stepped in so I wanted to take time to thank everyone over there and let them know that I appreciate all the support! This is awesome!”

Waste a few minutes checking out Subzero’s online album of 35 humorous screenshots from Halo 3. But then consider how smart developer Bungie was to include grabbing, recording and uploading capabilities in the game along with an online place for fans to share them. The game earned $300 million in its first week of release because it’s a great franchise, but thinking like this helps keep it such a strong place in popular culture.

Speaking of which, Dr. Pepper will have a gamer on the label of about 175 million 20-ounce bottles from January to April. Halo 3 player Tsquared, known to his family as Tom Taylor, has a three-year$250,000 contract with Major League Gaming.

The Simpsons are in the news again. Unsurprisingly, the series is up for five Writers Guild of America Awards. What’s slightly surprising is that this is the first time the long-running show has been nominated for best comedy series. But what’s really surprising is a recent Australian court ruling that sophomoric drawings of the bright yellow characters are just like photographs. A man who had poorly-drawn images on his computer of Bart, Lisa and Maggie having sex was found guilty of child pornography.

The article said the court ruled, “That while The Simpsons characters had hands with four fingers and their faces were ‘markedly and deliberately different to those of any possible human being’, the mere fact that they were not realistic representations of human beings did not mean that they could not be considered people.”

Among the many expressing outrage is the inimitable Neil Gaiman. Putting it much better than I ever could, Gaiman said, “I suspect the Judge might have just inadvertently granted human rights to cartoon characters.” He added, “I think it’s nonsensical in every way that it could possibly be nonsensical,” and even joked that the characters made their first TV appearance in the ‘80s so they’re all over 18.

Take a look at whatever you collect – anime, video games, graphic novels, DVDs, T-shirts, notepads you doodled on during a meeting – and think about whether you could be found guilty of pornography according to this ludicrous logic. And be grateful the United States has organizations like the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

I just received an invitation to “Become a Fairy at PixieHollow.com.” There is no way I’m in the target audience, but it gave me an excuse to check out Disney’s new MMO-lite. Disney says more than 12 million personalized fairies have already been created, many by girls who discovered the online world via a toy from the Clickables Fairy Collection. Members of the world can play games that correspond with the underlying theme that every person has a special valuable talent. They also can collect items, do craft projects, earn redeemable points, and engage in other similar activities. Lots of stuff is free to do, but it quickly becomes clear that the place is set up for paid membership ($5.95 a month, $57.95 annually). There’s a lot more to what Disney is doing to extend the entire Pixie Hollow property – including books, console games, park attractions, odd things like a guitar strap, a full range of clothing and more – but what I really like is that the technology doesn’t make a big deal out of itself. The attraction is the intellectual property and what children can do to interact with it. The amazing underlying technology is simply a fact, no more worth mentioning than the fact that some of the toys need batteries.