Some of Miller's TIG welding power supplies come intentionally crippled, locking out many useful functions until you buy a $400 SD card.
It's a good example of how laws that prohibit "circumvention" (breaking a digital lock) are an invitation to companies to indulge in abusive business practices. Under section 1201 of the DMCA, it's a felony to break the kind of locks that Miller uses. That means that, rather than selling you property that is as useful as possible, manufacturers can deliberately shackle their devices and then outsource the enforcement of those shackles to the taxpayers.
Sarah Jeong continues her excellent series of critical perspectives on technology with a piece on the way that technology is being used to let computers control their users, on behalf of the corporations who make and sell these tools.
The crowdfunded, critically successful fan-film Prelude to Axanar has been in Paramount’s cross-hairs since late last year, when the studio filed suit against the film’s producers.
If you haven’t experimented with the latest programs for naturally drawing and sketching on a touchscreen, then you may be surprised how far those advancements have come. Replicating the fine detail produced by a skilled human hand is becoming surprisingly possible in the digital environment – with the proper tools at your disposal, of course.The […]
We didn’t all go to Wharton or Harvard Business School. Sometimes the entrepreneurial bug bites long after your collegiate days have passed. But just because you didn’t get a business degree from some super-prestigious, ultra-expensive commerce-focused proving ground doesn’t mean you’ll never learn what it takes to succeed in the world of dollars and cents.In […]
From the makers of the innovative word processing-task management program Scrivener, Scapple is unlike any software you’ve ever used. Got a project you’re noodling over? Just start jotting down notes on Scapple’s freeform, type-anywhere canvas…and before too long, your assignment begins to take form. You’ll start adding arrows and connections, tying one thought to another in a broadening […]
