audio » UMaine NMDNet

Hack someone's car with a malicious tune

Apr 022011

Remember that meme going around a few years back where certain dance beats could hack teen brains? Well, apparently it works for cars.

http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/03/12/0114219/Hacking-a-Car-With-Music?from=rss via Byline

“Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Washington have identified a handful of ways a hacker could break into a car, including attacks over the car’s Bluetooth and cellular network systems, or through malicious software in the diagnostic tools used in automotive repair shops. But their most interesting attack focused on the car stereo. By adding extra code to a digital music file, they were able to turn a song burned to CD into a Trojan horse. When played on the car’s stereo, this song could alter the firmware of the car’s stereo system, giving attackers an entry point to change other components on the car. This type of attack could be spread on file-sharing networks without arousing suspicion, they believe. ‘It’s hard to think of something more innocuous than a song,’ said Stefan Savage, a professor at the University of California.”

So next time your car doesn’t start or insists on turning right instead of left, blame those tunes you downloaded from Limewire.

In seemingly unrelated news, the music industry is suing Limewire for 75 trillion dollars. I imagine if the RIAA got wind of professor Savage’s research, they would up the number into the quadrillions.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/03/23/1930238/Limewire-Being-Sued-For-75-Trillion?from=rss via Byline

“13 record companies are trying to sue Limewire for $75 Trillion. The NYC judge in the case thinks it is ‘absurd’. Its almost like these media companies are their worst enemy trying to make themselves look ridiculous. From the article: “The record companies, which had demanded damages ranging from $400 billion to $75 trillion, had argued that Section 504(c)(1) of the Copyright Act provided for damages for each instance of infringement where two or more parties were liable. For a popular site like Lime Wire, which had thousands of users and millions of downloads, Wood held that the damage award would be staggering under this interpretation. ‘If plaintiffs were able to pursue a statutory damage theory predicated on the number of direct infringers per work, defendants’ damages could reach into the trillions,’ she wrote. ‘As defendants note, plaintiffs are suggesting an award that is more money than the entire music recording industry has made since Edison’s invention of the phonograph in 1877.’”

Biggest music pirates? The record labels

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Jan 202011

Record labels agree to settle a class-action lawsuit by paying songwriters $47.5 million for tracks the labels themselves pirated. Oh, and Sony et al. didn’t make the 300,000 copyrighted songs (which they didn’t own) freely available on a filesharing network–they *sold* them.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/01/11/0615258/Record-Labels-To-Pay-For-Copyright-Infringement?from=rss via Byline “Sony Music Entertainment Canada Inc., EMI Music Canada Inc., Universal Music Canada Inc. and Warner Music Canada Co. have agreed to pay songwriters and music publishers $47.5 million in damages for copyright infringement and overdue royalties to settle a class action lawsuit. ‘The 2008 class action alleges that the record companies “exploited” music owners by reproducing and selling in excess of 300,000 song titles without securing licenses from the copyright owners and/or without paying the associated royalty payments. The record companies knowingly did so and kept a so-called “pending list” of unlicensed reproductions, setting aside $50 million for the issue, if it ever arose, court filings suggest.’”

Not to be outdone, Microsoft is trying to patent the idea of a “fan.”

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/01/07/2130218/Microsoft-Lays-Claim-To-Patent-On-Fans?from=rss via Byline theodp writes “A USPTO filing made public Thursday reveals that Microsoft is seeking a patent for something it calls ‘One-Way Public Relationships’ in social networks and other online properties, lawyer-speak for what’s more commonly known as being a ‘fan’ of something online. It’s unclear whether it’s a goof on Apple, but Microsoft curiously used the example of a U2 fan named Steve to explain its ‘invention’ to the USPTO. Purported patent reformer Microsoft, which has called for the US to change from a first-to-invent patent system to a first-to-file system, filed the patent application in July 2009. Microsoft is a partner with and investor in Facebook, which first established its fan pages back in November 2007.”

Maybe these old media companies should be looking at newer, “free-to-play” business models.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/01/07/2220228/emLotR-Onlinesem-Free-To-Play-Switch-Tripled-Revenue?from=rss via Byline Last June, Turbine made the decision to switch Lord of the Rings Online from a subscription-based business model to a free-to-play model supported by microtransactions. In a podcast interview with Ten Ton Hammer, Turbine executives revealed that the switch has gone well for the company, with game revenues roughly tripling. The active player base has also grown significantly in that time. Executive Producer Kate Paiz said, “This really echoes a lot of what we’ve seen throughout the entertainment industry in general. It’s really about letting players make their choices about how they play.”

Six-year-olds and other recent victims of copyright

News No Responses »

Nov 072010

Six-year-olds can be sued, lawyers pirate each other, Apple’s App Store won’t accept GPL’d software, and yet another jury awarded the RIAA huge damages against filesharer Jammie Thomas. But at least the US government no longer thinks genes should be patented.

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/10/30/1435222/New-York-Judge-Rules-6-Year-Old-Can-Be-Sued

“A girl can be sued over accusations she ran over an elderly woman with her training bicycle when she was 4 years old, a New York Supreme Court justice has ruled. The ruling by King’s County Supreme Court Justice Paul Wooten stems from an incident in April 2009 when Juliet Breitman and Jacob Kohn, both aged four, struck an 87-year-old pedestrian, Claire Menagh, with their training bikes. Menagh underwent surgery for a fractured hip and died three months later. In a ruling made public late Thursday, the judge dismissed arguments by Breitman’s lawyer that the case should be dismissed because of her young age. He ruled that she is old enough to be sued and the case can proceed.”

Meanwhile, the App Store restrictions irk makers of popular video player VLC:

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/10/31/1351243/VLC-Developer-Takes-a-Stand-Against-DRM-Enforcement

“The GPL gives Apple permission to distribute this software through the App Store. All they would have to do is follow the license’s conditions to help keep the software free. Instead, Apple has decided that they prefer to impose Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) and proprietary legal terms on all programs in the App Store, and they’d rather kick out GPLed software than change their own rules.”

And those anti-piracy lawyers turn out to be pirating each other. http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/10/10/03/2135202/Anti-Piracy-Lawyers-Caught-Pirating-Each-Other

“We would like to think that the lawyers that are prosecuting alleged copyright infringers are practicing what they preach, but it looks like one of the most high profile firms involved in such cases are just as guilty of stealing others’ work as those who are downloading illegal media.” The Obama administration makes a 180 on patenting genes.

http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/10/30/1140235/US-Says-Genes-Should-Not-Be-Patentable

Geoffrey.landis writes “A friend-of-the-court brief filed by the US Department of Justice says that genes should not be patentable. ‘We acknowledge that this conclusion is contrary to the longstanding practice of the Patent and Trademark Office, as well as the practice of the National Institutes of Health and other government agencies that have in the past sought and obtained patents for isolated genomic DNA,’ they wrote (PDF). The argument that genes in themselves (as opposed to, say, tests made from genetic information, or drugs that act on proteins made by genes) should be patentable is that ‘genes isolated from the body are chemicals that are different from those found in the body’ and therefore are eligible for patents. This argument is, of course, completely silly, and apparently the US government may now actually realize that.”

This instrument really blows--in a good way

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Oct 232010

And it’ll blow your wallet too, to judge from the pricetag. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want one of these crazy electronic saxiPhones that look like something out of the cantina scene from Star Wars.

http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/LRvEH3tTULg/

It’s nerdier than a theramin and even harder to play. Meet the Eigenharp Pico….

A plastic breath pipe with a reed curves from the top of the Pico. Two columns of nine keys each run parallel down its body, flanked by a touch-sensitive “ribbon” controller used primarily for pitch-bending and for bowing a software-modeled cello.

Each LED-decked, pressure-sensitive key of the Eigenharp is actually three keys in one: The concave center triggers a standard note, while the upper edge triggers a sharp and the lower edge a flat. Octaves can be raised or lowered by tapping on two smaller, circular buttons below the keyboard.

Two identical buttons above the keyboard serve different purposes. One turns the drum loop on and off, and the other — when held down — turns the keyboard into “main mode”: cycle through instruments, change scales, record and edit loops, add or subtract to the percussive beat, and manipulate a slew of other parameters.

Filesharing headed to Supreme Court

News 3 Responses »

Sep 232010

It’s hard to believe that a high-schooler wouldn’t know about copyrighted music–but then it’s amazing what high-schoolers don’t know these days. Not to mention how little the recording industry seems to know about public relations, given how much they are asking per song. (At least it’s not the full $150,000 bizarrely permitted them under US copyright law. Is this a kinder, gentler RIAA, settling for a mere $30,000 because the defendant is a cheerleader?)

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/09/22/1717245/Supreme-Court-May-Tune-In-To-Music-Download-Case?from=rss via Byline droopus writes “The U.S. Supreme Court is weighing into the first RIAA file sharing case to reach its docket, requesting that the music labels’ litigation arm respond to a case testing the so-called ‘innocent infringer’ defense to copyright infringement. The case pending before the justices concerns a federal appeals court’s February decision ordering a university student to pay the Recording Industry Association of America $27,750 – $750 a track – for file-sharing 37 songs when she was a high school cheerleader. The appeals court decision reversed a Texas federal judge who, after concluding the youngster was an innocent infringer, ordered defendant Whitney Harper to pay $7,400 – or $200 per song. That’s an amount well below the standard $750 fine required under the Copyright act. Harper is among the estimated 20,000 individuals the RIAA has sued for file-sharing music. The RIAA has decried Harper as ‘vexatious,’ because of her relentless legal jockeying.” As one Slashdot commenter runs the numbers:

Downloading 24 songs -> 1.92 million dollars

Producing wilfully misleading documents in regards to royalties owed to the natives who’s land you are pumping gas from (for 25,949 violation days) -> 5.2 million dollars (65 songs)

Filling falsified audits for 4 years overstating pre-tax income by more than $1 billion (really was 1.4bill). -> 7 million dollars (88 songs)

Causing more than 300 oil spills (the largest being 100,000gallons into Nueces Bay, TX), illegally discharging crude oil totalling 3million gallons of crude leaking into ponds, lakes, rivers and streams across 6 states over a period of 7 years. All due to negligence and improper maintenance. -> 35 million dollars (437 songs)

Seems fair to me. 229 gallons of leaked crude oil into natural environments per mp3 copied. That means that my personal music collection is as bad as dumping 1.15 million barrels of oil across the countryside. To try to imagine how much that is: It is 357 average sized US homes filled with oil.

The pen is mighter than the...um...pen

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Sep 192010

19livescribe Popup v 2 thu It’s a pen! It’s a voice recorder! It’s both–and Livescribe’s advocates claim it will revolutionize note-taking in class.

Breakthroughs In HTML Audio Via Manipulation With JavaScript

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May 282010

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Sure, sound in a Web page can be horribly misused. But now when it has a legitimate purpose, you won’t have to kill a mosquito with a cannon by drumming up a Flash file just to play a beep.

Imagine if you could grab and manipulate audio with JavaScript just like you can images with Canvas. Firefox experimental builds let you do just that: crazy audio visualizations, a graphic equalizer, even text-to-speech, all in JavaScript! Work in progress; you need a special build of Firefox (videos available), being worked on via W3C.

http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/fnfEngBMfXE/Breakthroughs-In-HTML-Audio-Via-Manipulation-With-JavaScript

Breakthroughs In HTML Audio Via Manipulation With JavaScript

News No Responses »

May 282010

Sure, sound in a Web page can be horribly misused. But now when it has a legitimate purpose, you won’t have to kill a mosquito with a cannon by drumming up a Flash file just to play a beep.

Imagine if you could grab and manipulate audio with JavaScript just like you can images with Canvas. Firefox experimental builds let you do just that: crazy audio visualizations, a graphic equalizer, even text-to-speech, all in JavaScript! Work in progress; you need a special build of Firefox (videos available), being worked on via W3C.

http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/fnfEngBMfXE/Breakthroughs-In-HTML-Audio-Via-Manipulation-With-JavaScript

Intermedia Students to Put on Nomadic Dinner Theater

Events 2 Responses »

Apr 242010

Screen shot 2010-04-24 at 12.46.51 PM Our company of actors and chefs will be arriving in the form of an alchemical laboratory that engages all of one’s senses through a media-rich exploration of food, music, video and theatrical performances. The University of Maine’s new Intermedia Graduate program will be launching a revolutionary collaborative effort, under the guidance of Professor Leon Johnson, where graduate students engage as designers, authors, performers, with a range of communities, to cultivate conversations with local artists, farmers, students, teachers and businesses to generate a uniquely immersive dining experience.

Guests will enter into a bubbling laboratory, rich with history beyond our time, as wandering scientists of questionable origin stop to observe the local inhabitants. Supported by a backdrop of music, video, custom designed sets, original script, an eclectic cast of characters, and a multi-course dinner prepared live from the finest local produce, the project looks to activate as many local artisans as possible. Collaborative efforts have already begun between the team of students and several artists and venues, and all are looking forward to the launch in April.

The students hope to demonstrate that this nomadic structure based on conversations with local communities around convivial spaces can become a sustainable architecture for artists and farmers alike. The collaborative model looks to activate new models of learning and engagement in the world that stimulate conversations that can carry on beyond the scope of a single project, generating opportunity and awareness for a host of groups and individuals throughout numerous communities. The theater will serve doubly as a mobile art gallery, as all artifacts that comprise the set will be custom designed artworks created specifically for that evening’s performance. From photography to furniture making and cooking, artisans of all types are encouraged to participate in this model. For more information on joining us as a guest or a collaborator in a dining experience like no other, please feel free to contact us.

Performance Dates May 5th, 6th, 7th
For Ticket Information, Please Contact richard.corey@umit.maine.edu

Processing + Arduino = fun with ordinary objects

News 1 Response »

Apr 192010

This is a really nice demonstration of how a mic, a speaker, and some software can animate inert objects. I would love to see a kindergarten go at these toys.

Hack someone's car with a malicious tune

This instrument really blows--in a good way

The pen is mighter than the...um...pen

Breakthroughs In HTML Audio Via Manipulation With JavaScript

Breakthroughs In HTML Audio Via Manipulation With JavaScript

Intermedia Students to Put on Nomadic Dinner Theater

Processing + Arduino = fun with ordinary objects

Design Research

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