Over-the-top technologies drive success
Legendary accounts of breakthroughs in technology tend to focus on operating systems, displays and new devices. But one of the most significant yet under-reported trends is for technology companies to try to ‘leapfrog’ each other with ‘over-the-top’ technologies. It is this trend that often defines the battle for supremacy in the technology industry. A technology goes ‘over-the-top’ when it is deployed on top of existing hardware and software, coming a key step closer to the end user. Because this new technology then controls the user experience, and grabs mind-share, it renders the technologies below it far less valuable, and in time, turns them into mere commodities. Modern technological development has largely been driven by this desire, and has made certain investors and entrepreneurs into billionaires in the process. When IBM shipped Microsoft’s early operating system with each of its PCs, it effectively paid Microsoft to go over the top of IBM’s huge investment in computers. Over a brief period of time, Microsoft gained so much control over users that it turned IBM’s core technology into a near commodity. We are still seeing the remnants of this today, with sub-$300 PCs and PC makers having near-zero profit margins. After trying and failing to kill Windows with OS/2 (remember OS/2?) IBM realised its mistake, and tried to go over the top of Microsoft itself. It spent over $4bn buying software firm Lotus because it wanted a small but crucial part of the business: Lotus Notes, with a revenue stream then of only $100-200m. What was IBM’s reasoning? Lotus Notes would become the main user interface, sitting on top of Microsoft’s Windows operating system, and turning Windows into a commodity, just as Microsoft had done to IBM before. It did not quite work out as planned, but for the potential of going over the top IBM was prepared to pay billions. It illustrated dramatically how valuable over-the-top technology can become.
Public knowledge pushes for copyright reform
Digital rights group Public Knowledge has launched a campaign to reform U.S. copyright laws and make them more friendly to the Internet, in the eyes of the group. The group was a leading critic of SOPA and PIPA, and one Public Knowledge proposal would fine companies that file unfounded copyright takedown notices with websites. The takedown notice proposal would also make takedown requests public and would require senders of takedown notices to state that they are authorized to act on behalf of the holder of an infringed copyright. The Internet Blueprint campaign is intended to spark long-term debate about U.S. copyright laws and their effects on the Internet, said Michael Weinberg, a senior staff attorney at Public Knowledge and coordinator of the project. Asked if the group expects opposition from some lawmakers or entertainment groups, Weinberg said he hopes proposals will generate discussion about the issues. “Every proposal in Congress has opponents,” he said. “We are hopeful that the entertainment industry recognizes that these proposals are reasonable steps towards making copyright work better for everyone and decides to support them along with members of the public. Congress is recognizing that these issues have an impact that is broader than large media companies, and therefore should take these proposals seriously.” Another Public Knowledge proposal would shorten copyright terms by 20 to 45 years, depending on the situation, and a third proposal would allow people to circumvent copyright controls on digital content if done for a legal purpose. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, it is illegal to circumvent digital rights management (DRM) technologies designed to protect copyrighted works.
Matt Fredericks and Dustin Williams were eager Wednesday to show off their science fair project — a hovercraft that can lift a person off the ground and move them around. The two students from St. Patrick Catholic High School were among hundreds of students from throughout South Mississippi participating in the Region VI Science and Engineering Fair at the Coast Convention Center. Fredericks and Williams created a computer simulation of their project, but also brought a lawn chair and leaf blower to demonstrate for judges. “It’s cool because it’s a new way to travel,” Fredericks said. “We’re hoping to get farther here than we did at school.” The team took second place at the school fair, they think, because they weren’t able to demonstrate the project for the judges. The regional science fair featured more than 700 projects from elementary, middle and high school students in Harrison, Hancock, Jackson, George and Stone counties. Middle school and high school students who won Wednesday will go on to compete at the state level, at a fair in Biloxi on March 27. David Sliman from the University of Southern Mississippi has been organizing the event since 1995, and he spends about eight months planning it. He also helps with the state and national science fairs. “Science fairs give students a chance to explore topics of personal interest,” he said. “An important part of their projects is actually doing the research and not only learning science.” Kiara Joiner’s project is titled, “What’s Killing the Fish?” and the D’Iberville Middle eighth-grader wanted to show how lack of oxygen affects water in the Gulf of Mexico. “We talked in class about how one of our resources is the Gulf of Mexico,” Joiner said. “That’s where I got the idea.”
Nuclear bomb could save Earth from asteroid
A well-placed nuclear explosion could actually save humanity from a big asteroid hurtling toward Earth, just like in the movies, a new study suggests. Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy facility in New Mexico, used a supercomputer to model nukes’ anti-asteroid effectiveness. They attacked a 1,650-foot-long (500-meter) space rock with a 1-megaton nuclear weapon — about 50 times more powerful than the U.S. blast inflicted on Nagasaki, Japan, to help end World War II. The results were encouraging. “Ultimately this 1-megaton blast will disrupt all of the rocks in the rockpile of this asteroid, and if this were an Earth-crossing asteroid, would fully mitigate the hazard represented by the initial asteroid itself,” Los Alamos scientist Bob Weaver said in a recent video released by the lab. In the 3-D modeling study, run on 32,000 processors of the Cielo supercomputer, the blast went off at the asteroid’s surface. So the nuke likely wouldn’t have to be deposited deep into a threatening space rock, a dangerous job Bruce Willis and his astronaut crew tackled in the 1998 film “Armageddon.” Weaver stressed that nuclear bombs would likely be deployed only as a last resort, if an impact loomed just months away. And other researchers caution that a nuclear blast might have negative side effects, such as sending a hail of many small space rocks toward Earth instead of a single big one. If humanity had more notice of an impending impact, there are several other asteroid defense strategies we might be able to employ, scientists have said.