This^[1] is incredibly cool. It reminds me of the interface used in the movie Minority Report

1. Mr. Jefferson Y. Han. “Apple’s Multi touch screen movie” 2006-02-09 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6379146923853181774&q=apple+touch

Personally, I am not much of a CD player. I find that about the only time I want to listen to the contents of just one CD is when I am listening to classical music, where a single work may be multiple tracks. Nor are the multi-disk changers an optimal solution. There is a noticeable delay as the disk is changed. As a result, I prefer to rip my CDs, shuffle the songs up in mpd, and listen to them in that form. Sure, I am aware that both mp3 and ogg formats are lossy, but I really cannot notice the difference, and it is worth it for the convenience.

Sounds reasonable right? The RIAA does not think so.^[1][2] They have retreated from their statement that rip CDs you own for use on the computer or on an mp3 player. Now, they do not even think you should be allowed to create a duplicate of the CD to save one as a backup in case the disc gets scratched. They would rather you buy multiple copies of each song (one on CD and one as mp3), and listen to them only when and in ways they envision.

1. Mr. Ken “Caesar” Fisher. “RIAA et al. says CD ripping, backups not fair use” ars technica 2006-02-15. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060215-6190.html
2. Mr. Fred von Lohmann. “RIAA Says Ripping CDs to Your iPod is NOT Fair Use” Deep Links 2006-02-15. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004409.php

Today, ars takes a look at Trusted Network Connect (TNC).^[1] This is the next step in the progression of Trusted Computing, and follows along in the shadow of the deployment of Trusted Platform Modules (TPM) in computers. In short, TNC allows computers on a network to query the state of their fellows and determine what they are running, and what they should be running. If the two do not match, the computer can be banned from the network.

Used by companies to secure their network, this is all well and good. In fact, it promises to deliver a non-trivial improvement over the existing situation. The problem is that it is not only going to be deployed and used in corporate, government, and school environments. It will be deployed in personal computers, and used against the owners. I do not take the trusting view of this that Mr. Pollack does, I highly suspect that some of these companies look forward to having tighter control over what software you run. They would just love to lock you out of websites if you are not using Internet Explorer. They would be ecstatic if not only did you have to use Internet Explorer to reach their content, but you had to not have competing software installed at all. The fact that this sort of control of our decisions is within the scope of the work on TNC and Trusted Computing in general is a significant cause for concern.

1. Mr. Peter Pollack. “The next step in trusted computing makes its debut” ars technica 2006-02-16. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060216-6202.html