Category Pointers

IBM to open 500 of their patents to the public.

IBM may not be any different to any other corporation --- ironically it used to be the ‘bad guy’ 20 years ago --- they announced that they will be opening 500 of their patents to the open source community, ensuring that open source developers will be free to use their technologies without paying any royalties.

Galileo Global Positioning threatened by the US Military?

I just read this article in The Register regarding the potential effect/degradation of the Galileo Global Positioning System by the US Military; apparently they are not that happy about its 1m resolution that is to be publicly available. I sincerely hope that no such demands are accepted by the EU. Galileo is a fantastic project and it's utility to Europeans and everyone else is paramount, both in civilian and military contexts. Unfortunately, I can see how the US military is concerned about this and how they will use their military and political muscle/influence to 'convince' the EU that Galileo should be degraded to a toy-GPS.

Ingmar Bergman Tribute at the NFT

I keep reminding myself of this, but end up not going; I've been saying I'll go since early January. Ah, time flies. Anyway, Bergman seems to be one of those directors that performed best in their earlier works. (Okay okay, that happens with most people, but that's not really what I meant) From the few movies of his I've seen, it is my impression that he would like to be much more profound and rebellious in his works, but was too restricted by the much more conservative society and movie making of the 50s, as opposed to the much more liberal and pleonastic society of the later decades and today. I can't seem to avoid relating his restrained, but magnificent filmmaking in the 'Smultronstället' (1957), as opposed to the explicit and (rather) pointless photography of, say, "Aus dem Leben der Marionetten" (1980). Well, hopefully I'll find something good in the NFT this week.

Robert Morris at Cambridge

Robert Morris Sr. (the father of Robert Morris Jr. who made the 'internet worm' back in late 1988), ex. lead scientist of the NSA, is speaking at a seminar in Cambridge this Tuesday entitled "The cryptographic role of the cleaning lady". You can get more info here I am definitely going. :) Update: The Morris seminar at Cambridge was quite interesting, but mostly from a 'historical' point of view. Nothing much on the 'cleaning lady' apart from a few (some well-known) stories here and there. Nothing much on anything really. A bit disappointed in that respect. But it was a nice trip out of London.