Pirate Bayer WinstonQ2038 explains here, that they believe physical objects are the next stage in downloading and copying. The word Physible is derived from this, meaning “Data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical.”

What the user needs in order to make use of the files on offer is a 3D printer, so it may not be as easy as downloading an mp3 or a pdf. Other kinks would be of course, intellectual property infringement of the objects. The Pirate Bay shares files through bittorrent links instead of hosting the files directly, so that’s their workaround for this little problem.

In fact, sharing 3D objects for 3D printers is actually nothing new, with sites such as Shapeways that not only allows you to share your 3D designs, but also prints and ships them to you, for a price.

With 3D printers now printing anything from plastic, metals, styrofoam to even chocolate, possibilities for this new ‘downloadable’ seem endless.

One thing this makes me think of is the replicators used in Star Trek. Although our current technology isn’t quite there yet, it does give us some insight on how future technologies will evolve. I certainly wouldn’t mind being able to print objects from my computer, instead having items shipped to me.

Most critics branded Apple for being a megalomaniac hell bent on keeping third party content developers out of the iPhone OS platform, as Flash is commonly used in advertising. They say that by retaining control on exactly how the iPhone OS will perform, they are quashing creativity and unfairly banning the competition from having their technology fairly represented (Flash technology forms a core part of the Internet for many years now, from Flash videos found in Youtube to user-navigation systems of most websites).

Well, Steve Jobs finally came out with an open letter detailing his ‘thoughts on Flash’, but mostly goes on to defend Apple’s action in disallowing Flash to run on their mobile operating system. And the arguments are surprisingly practical, if not convincing.

First, there is the problem of speed. Flash content, especially Flash video, relies on software to decode. The modern H.264 format is far more advantageous because most modern mobile devices, including the iPhone/Pod/Pad, come with a hardware chip dedicated to decoding H.264 format videos. Hardware decoding is far more efficient than using Flash video and thus can be very important especially in a power (both processing power and battery power) limited mobile devices. I have always believed this, but Steve Jobs claimed that a Flash video can only run for about 5 hours before the battery drains, while using H.264, 10+ hours of playback can be expected. This is certainly no trivial figure.

Second, Flash technology is designed around the PC, with many triggers for mouse roll-over and clicks. None of this is possible in a touch device such as the iPhone OS because there is no concept of mouse, hence most websites that rely on Flash for navigation has to be rewritten anyway. And Apple advocates that people move away from Flash and onto HTML5, which contains enough new instructions to emulate the smooth animations and menus reminiscent of Flash.

Steve Jobs goes on to detail a host of other flaws of Adobe/Flash, including security and the fact that by moving to Flash, it’s just moving to a different closed system, this time controlled by Adobe instead of Apple.

Whatever the case, I believe that there is real reason why Apple continues to fight Adobe by now allowing Flash to run on their device. By motivating people to move away from Flash and onto HTML5 (which is a true open standard), Adobe is certainly more at risk here. Well, whatever the case, at least now you have heard both sides of the argument.

PDF is a great format for computers, but on the limited screen of a phone, they are hopeless and very hard to navigate, requiring lots of panning around and waiting for the phone to ‘redraw’ every time you pan the view. I started my quest to hunt for the best ebook readers for smartphones and this is the results.

If you are on the iPhone OS platform (ala iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone), things are extremely simple for you. Simply download the Stanza app, which includes a desktop client. From here on, everytime you turn on your iPhone and connect to your home network, launch Stanza on your phone and computer and they will connect to each other automagically. After that, just click and drop your favourite books from your desktop and it will automatically upload them to your iPhone. It’s  a really genius interface and makes transferring books a painless and near foolproof process.

Stanza is able to convert almost any text medium, including PDF, RTF, MS Office, ePub and a host of other formats.

If you are on Android, things are a bit tougher. Currently my favourite eBook reader app for Android is Aldiko, which performs pretty much the same functions as Stanza on the iPhone. However, Aldiko lacks a desktop client, so you can only get books either through the Aldiko store or by copying it into your phone memory. Aldiko only supports the ePub format, so if you have any other formats, you will need to find a converter for it.

For other smartphones such as Blackberry and Symbian, there are also plenty of ePub readers out there and it should be no problems getting one.

One reason why I prefer the ePub format is because this format will be the future de facto standard for electronic books. It is currently supported by most, if not all, major eBook readers such as the Amazon Kindle, Hanlin and its clones, the Barnes & Noble Nook and so on. Converting your collection over to ePub now ensures future compatibility and less hassle.

Which brings the topic to ePub converters. Stanza does a wonderful job converting all sorts of format into ePub for its iPhone software and the ease of use makes it the top choice converter if you are on the iPhone platform. For Android and other platforms, your best bet is Calibre, an open source Ebook Manager which comes with a powerful converter. Fans say the conversion from Calibre is of higher quality than Stanza, and supports graphics.

Using Calibre is pretty simple, you just install it and start adding books into its database. There is a Convert button which you can click to convert from almost any format to ePub. Once conversion is done, you can choose to transfer it to your phone’s memory. On the iPhone, unless you have jailbroken it, copying is not so easily done as the computer does not detect the iPhone as a Mass Storage device, so you are better off using Stanza’s automated functions.

Enjoy carrying your library in your pocket! And not just your music library, but books as well.

iPad also runs on the iPhone OS, however the release of the iPad version of iPhone OS will be delayed, possibly due to the small differences in hardware and screen size especially. So what can we expect from Apple in the fourth coming?

The biggest buzzword of all is MULTITASKING. Ever since they launched the iPhone, critics have been laughing at Apple’s insistence on not allowing the phone to open up more than 1 active app at a time. The reason cited for this include simplifying the user experience (no doubt, anybody can pick up an iPhone and instantly know how to use it), saving battery life and also making sure the phone doesn’t get bogged down when we inevitably open up too many apps at the same time. For those coming from the PocketPC era, this is a laughable crippling of a smartphone as users of Windows Mobile devices have been able to multitask all this while.

Finally Apple embraces multitasking with the iPhone OS4, and they allowed a specific implementation of multitasking which I’d say is not true multitasking. First of all, ‘multitasking’ is only limited to several specific functions, such as allowing for sound to continue to play even when you close the main app, or allowing your chat session to be maintained when on Skype using VOIP or allowing apps to access the GPS information even when they are closed. Apple has clearly defined several such features. Furthermore, when you ‘switch’ apps, the system will freeze the app the way you closed it, so that you can resume exactly where you left off.The app can still continue to access the functions that Apple has defined, but nothing more than that.

So it’s not true multitasking, because still only one app is running at any time, but at least it gives a good illusion of multitasking, and the app freezing feat reinforces the experience. Crucially though, Apple’s promise of making sure that your phone doesn’t get bogged down or run out of battery life faster is maintained.

Unfortunately, Android has been implementing such a feature for a long time now, and Apple’s just playing catch.

Another feature introduced is the ability to add customized backgrounds and folder icons. However for those familiar with jailbreaking their Apple products, the ability to do these things have long since existed, perhaps not in such a clean and friendly way as Apple’s implementation. More importantly, Android devices already have these options, and a lot more.

In summary, is the device a good deal for Apple fans? Yes because they finally bring the platform to PARITY with Android. This will not even dent Android’s meteoric rise and given how fast and vast Android has been improved in just a few short months, Apple is set to play catch unless they can abandon their habit of clamping down on what the user can do with the gadget in their pockets.

Double checking the prices between The Book Repository and Amazon.com shows that more often than not, TBR is able to match or even beat the prices offered by Amazon. After factoring in shipping prices, TBR becomes a seriously good deal.

The website interface is a little bit disorientating, but given the wide range of books on sale, it’s a joy to browse through and see all sorts of topics on sale. My friend wanted to get a book on Greek Mythology, and the prices at Kinokuniya wass more than RM100 for a thin book while I found a 700 page book on TBR for less than $20!

For popular paperbacks(eg Stephanie Meyer’s Eclipse or Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore), prices tend to range in the RM45 territory (after conversion), which makes it a tad more expensive compared to stuff you can find at Popular. However TBR’s greatest strength is in the almost gigantic library it carries, making finding books on obscure subjects or things not sold here a breeze.

I’m not sure how customs will handle buying books overseas, whether there will be any additional duties imposed, etc. As it is, a book lover should have no problem spending lots of time (and money) on books that you can’t get anywhere else!

I have read/write access to the entire system memory, and HV level access to the processor. In other words, I have hacked the PS3. The rest is just software. And reversing. I have a lot of reversing ahead of me, as I now have dumps of LV0 and LV1. I've also dumped the NAND without removing it or a modchip.

3 years, 2 months, 11 days...thats a pretty secure system

The reaction from the hacker community is first that of disbelief, as there have been many such claims in the past that turned out to be scams. But Geohot’s reputation as an iPhone hacker made the news very believable although some remain skeptical until hard proof comes out of a successful hack.

The hacker remains cautious not to reveal too much info to Sony although he did state that the theory is unpatchable. If you own a PS3, I suggest not updating it any further in case the hack won’t work with newer firmware. A few other hackers close to Geohot have confirmed his hack on the website leading even more credence to the news.

Geohot’s objective of hacking the PS3 is to unsigned code which makes it possible for the homebrew community to have full access to Sony’s hardware. A side-effect to this would be that it would now be possible to run pirated games on the PS3, provided you have the money to invest in a Blu-ray burner and on the Blu-ray discs, both of which are prohibitively priced at the moment.

Some have expressed hope in having the hack allow running ISO games directly from the PS3′s hard drive, eliminating the need to purchase any expensive equipment. For all intents and purposes, the hack that Geohot will release will not feature any of these illegal copy-protection circumventions, although enterprising Chinese hackers will surely come in to fill this massive void.

Finally, the hack was accomplished without using any modchips. However Geohot did not mention whether the complicated setup he has on his PS3 is necessary to execute the hack, or is merely there to help him find the vulnerability that allowed for the hack to happen.

But Bit Torrent will be undergoing a dramatic shift soon and here are some new technologies that users may find useful to learn up on.

As it is, Torrents still function by downloading a piece of ‘xxx.torrent’ file from popular file sharing websites such as Pirate Bay, Mininova, Eztv, and so on. With information contained within the files, the torrent client (uTorrent, Azureus, etc) then calculates a ‘torrent hash’ with a fingerprint of the files which is to be downloaded. The large files are often broken down into smaller chunks (a typical 30-minute series can have thousands of fragments), there are thousands of hashes to be calculated. After obtaining the hashes, the client then connects to ‘peers’ to start downloading the file fragments. After downloading, a hash is generated from the fragment and compared to the precomputed one earlier. If they are identical, it means the fragment is downloaded correctly with no errors. Sometimes, due to inefficiencies, the fragment may have an incorrect hash and is rejected. Companies can also poison a torrent swam by injecting false information but this tactic is negated with proper hash checking.

Anyway, it all comes down to this xxx.torrent file, which you have to get from ‘somewhere’ and many authorities have started to crack down on popular sharing sites which host these files. The Pirate Bay is a famous example, having been forced out of Sweden (where their servers are located) due to pressure from copyright holders. With no access to torrent files, Bit Torrent is dead.

Thankfully, three new technologies have surfaced to aid and increase Bit Torrent and they are DHT, PEX and Magnet links. A fourth, so far only present in uTorrent, has also provides a new method to reduce traffic congestion caused by Bit Torrent activities.

Distributed Hash Table

DHT, also know as Distributed Hash Table, is simply another way to foster communication between peers and to discover new peers as they enter a swarm. When activated, your client will connect to a ‘bootstrap’ address such as router.utorrent.com and from there receive a list of peers also with DHT enabled. From there, your client builds up a list of peers and uses them to exchange information related to peers and to receive addresses of new peers when they join the DHT swarm. It is very similar to technologies used in Limewire and WinMX (old file sharing programs) that have a central node, except with DHT, there is no central node, just a swarm of interconnected peers.

Peer Exchange

PEX, or Peer Exchange, is another method of peer discovery whereby when you manage to connect to a peer, you can get a list of peers that person is connected to and repeat the process. It needs to kick start but once it gets going, it is very efficient at getting you new peers to connect to.

Magnet

Magnet is a new way of handling torrent files, also known as torrentless trackers. Instead of downloading a file and computing the hash, the website owner precomputes the hash for you and makes the information available in the Magnet link, which you click. When a torrent client detects the Magnet link, it will automatically launch and connect to peers immediately to download the first torrent file. It is worthy to note that torrent files are still important and hold a lot of necessary information needed to start the process of downloading. Therefore it is so far impossible to eliminate torrent files, but Magnet makes the process a lot more automated and is necessary as anti-P2P laws are moving towards the direction of banning torrent files from being hosted all together.

uTorrent

Fourth and last, uTorrent have built into their clients an automatic decongestion mechanism. When it senses that a network is becoming saturated with too much file sharing activity, it will scale back and allow more important duties such as website and video streaming to take precedence. This will be important as P2P activity start to saturate the connections of Internet service providers which use this as excuse to cut off connections of heavy users or invoke fair-use clauses. It will also improve your home network Internet surfing quality, especially when many people are doing P2P activities on the same network.

No doubt, the Bit Torrent community continue to evolve their methods to fight back against copyright holders. It is also important to note that with modern clients such as uTorrent, PEX and DHT comes automatically activated and you don’t need to do anything to enjoy its benefits. Magnet will be come more common and replace torrent files as time goes on, so no action is necessary on your part as well.

The rules of the game are that one must seek out a colored ticket (there are three colors – red, blue and green) hidden on the Yahoo! Youreka! website; register online and receive a confirmation e-mail that can be exchanged for a Tag to redeem a prize.

You may choose to claim your prize immediately or if you are lucky, exchange your eDM for a purple tag that will give you the chance to take part in the YOUREKA! Finale Event organized by Yahoo! Malaysia, at Capsquare, Kuala Lumpur, on November 25. The best prizes to be won at this stage are such as a customized one-of-a-kind iPOD Touch and Macbook Air!

Last weekend, the first YOUREKA! pit-stop was held at the Adidas flagship store in The Gardens, Midvalley where red tag holders received 10% off Adidas products and free Adidas premiums.

For those of you who are dying to participate, this is how you enter:
Log on to and start looking for YOUREKA! Tickets. Yahoo! users can start hunting right away, while new users need to register.

*Take note that only one colored Tag can be redeemed with a confirmation eDM colored Ticket for each redemption period. Redemption items are non-exchangeable and strictly while stocks last.

First up are two very useful scripts for Greasemonkey that are called FB Purity and Facebook Fixer. FB Purity takes aim at annoying quizzes and blasts them out of Facebook alltogether. Well, technically they are just hidden from you using clever manipulation of CSS scripts, but at least you will enjoy a cleaner looking and less obnoxious home page. Next is Facebook Fixer, which does a whole lot of behind-the-scenes changes so that the new Facebook resembles the older style. More importantly, it adds a really useful feature whereby when you mouse over any images, it will automatically pop up the full resolution picture at the side. Very useful when browsing galleries.

A word of warning though, these scripts need the Greasemonkey extension for Firefox, and may cause instabilities if and when Facebook updates their website, which may happen often. So far I only had problems once, and the fix is simply to disable all scripts until an update comes along for it. These two have helped me the most in cleaning up and making Facebook more user friendly and they are thus highly recommended.

Next up is a Firefox extension called Archive Facebook, which does exactly that. After installing, navigate over to Facebook and a link should show, allowing you to backup all your pictures, messages, activity stream, etc. Everything related to your account will have a copy recreated on your hard drive, which is very useful for downloading all your profile pictures.

Finally, TweetDeck is the app of choice when it comes to integrating Facebook, Twitter and MySpace into a single application. The tool is currently the second most popular Twitter application (behind Twitter’s own website) and offers features such as sending and replying tweets, status updates to Facebook and creating groups to monitor selected conversations, as well as previewing thumbnails and un-shortening shorturls so that you can see which websites are going to. It’s wrapped up in a shiny Adobe AIR interface and performs well. I have already replaced Digsby with TweetDeck on my computer.

With these tools, Facebook and Twitter will hopefully work even better for you. Any other tools you can share which improves your experience on these two web services?

Once they successfully establish a connection to you and start downloading data, its pretty much an open and shut case when it goes to court in terms of evidence needed. They simply need to track your IP address, send a subpoena to the company providing you your Internet access to cough up your personal information. To combat this problem, a program called PeerGuardian2 (PG2) came along and promises to alleviate some of your headaches.

PG2 works by keeping a list of ‘blacklisted’ IP addresses that are known to belong to these organizations. If your computer attempts to make a connection to these blacklisted IPs, it will prevent the computer from actually completing the connection and thus save you a potentially hefty fine.

PG2 hasn’t been updated in awhile, so PeerBlock came along. It is based on the same source code of PG2, but with a few bugfixes to correct existing problems in PG2. The software is very easy to download and set up so give it a shot if you are looking to try and reduce your radar fingerprint on the copyright radar.

Another similar program is called Protowall. It works using the same concept as PeerBlock/PG2 but has an even more comprehensive lists that is maintained around the clock by armies of dedicated users. Their block lists includes AntiP2P organizations, Spyware, AD Trackers, Spam, and so on. These will ensure that your computer will never be allowed to establish a connection to blocked IP addresses to communicate with them.

Finally, a more complicated method involves running your BitTorrent trackers through the Tor network, although for most users this is quite a challenging task, with in-depth guides written about it such as the one available here. Anyway, most of the world has moved on to using file upload websites such as Rapidshare, Megaupload and so on. This next generation file-sharing service seems to be providing a viable solution to the problem of ‘throttled’ P2P traffic by internet providers and the fear of being caught using P2P software. Sites like Rapidshare are no different than an ordinary website and downloads are done through HTTP, so it is indistinguishable from legitimate surfing traffic. It remains to be seen whether P2P is able to offer this kind of protection soon before file sharing sites such as Rapidshare figure out a way to handle the problem of removing illegal content on their servers.