Many of the hype-fuelled municipal WiFi plans made by various cities across the country involved free services supported by advertising. The party line was that businesses would love the chance to advertise to users in their immediate vicinity, while users would eat up the free services. Unsurprisingly, like muni WiFi in general, the actual deployments attempts at generating ad revenues have failed to live up to the inflated expectations. One of the biggest problems was that advertisers would have to do deals with individual networks, making it much more difficult to get make a wide ad buy than with other media like traditional web ads. That's starting to change, as a handful of companies are sprouting up to set up nationwide ad networks, allowing marketers to make purchases across multiple muni WiFi networks. That's a good step, but it's not a complete solution. Many networks have had teething problems that that have generated bad press and hardly encouraged usage, while the idea that businesses will pay a premium to advertise to local users may be oft-repeated, but remains unproven. One area where WiFi networks are seeing strong ad sales? Airports and hotels, where the attraction for marketers is a high number of business travelers. The different demographics of free municipal networks may not dictate the same level of demand.

Andrew Koyfman writes "Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories is falling apart. Top researchers and scientists are being poached by the competitors, including BAE, Adobe, and others. The lab was responsible for much breakthrough research in the areas of computer vision, computer graphics, AI, and machine learning. They were the first group to develop the Diamond Touch table, an early precursor to Microsoft's Surface Computing. Now it looks like the famous lab will be no more, at least not in their original glory."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Xeni Jardin:

Ex-MTV and CBS Radio exec Rob Barnett created MyDamnChannel because he believes online audiences "want to see professionally produced shows other than network TV fare." Tell that to the cat poop auteurs and all those pugs on skateboards. Harry Shearer, David Wain, and Don Was are among the creative participants mentioned. Link to AP item, here's the company's press release. Laguna Beach-based Okapi Venture Capital is listed as a backer.

As Steve Levitt explains in Freakonomics, the primary power held by real estate agents is their control over information. Bizarrely, he compares them to the Ku Klux Klan (because they also derived their power from information), which is an absurd overstatement that seems mainly aimed at hitting readers on an emotional level. Nonetheless, the point is valid, which is why real estate agents fear the potential for the web to circumvent their control on real estate information. Recently, real estate site Zillow introduced a new offering to provide prospective buyers more information about their communities, while another site, StreetAdvisors, is introducing more tools to deliver the same thing. These have the potential to be significant, since real estate agents are limited legally in what they can say about a neighborhood. Seeing as this is crucial stuff for prospective buyers or renters, knowing that this information is available on the web but not through their agent will only hasten the industry's shift towards the web.

The Webguy writes "Apple has released the first update for the iPhone. Updated components in the v1.0.1 update include Safari, the WebCore, and the WebKit. Quoting from the Apple Knowledge Base, the 'update is only available through iTunes, and will not appear in your computer's Software Update application, or on the Apple Support Downloads site.'" One source speculated that Apple wanted to get fixes in users' hands ahead of the Black Hat conference where details of early iPhone vulnerabilities could be revealed.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Over at the Steel Yard blog, Jackson writes:

Camp Metalhead, the Steel Yard's two week summer youth program, is firing on all cylinders! By the first day, all ten of the students had learned to cut steel using the versatile oxy acetylene torch. A morning trip to our partners over at Mid City Steel and Scrap proved to be well worthwhile. Some of the students even got to operate the fierce TEREX magnetic scrap mover, while the Steel Yard chaperons looked on with jealousy. Stay tuned for more exciting field trips and projects.

Camp Metalhead [photos] - Link

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Xeni Jardin: I don't grok it yet, but it looks like Ashton Kutcher is doing some kind of alternate reality game. Perhaps he just loves bees. Here are some relevant urls: Link to www.401wtf.com, and video link. In related news: A VOIP startup just launched with Mr. Kutcher as celebrity endorser, presume this is unrelated to the ARG (or whatever that is): Link to ooma.com.

For years, people have been pointing out that the MPAA's fears over movie downloading are overblown. After all, the experience of watching a movie that you download is quite different from actually going to the theaters and enjoying a social night out. Yet, the folks in the movie industry continue to misunderstand this simple fact. They insist that movie piracy is destroying the business at the same time that they continually make the movie going experience worse, not better. However, the point is driven home week after week when top movies continue to do amazingly well at the box office, despite being available online. We noticed this years ago when the latest installment of Star Wars did quite well despite tons of downloads. More recently, despite entertainment industry worries that the film Sicko was available prior to release, that film also succeeded at the box office. The latest is The Simpsons' Movie, where unauthorized downloading was such a worry that the opening sequence features Bart's famous chalkboard punishment saying "I Will Not Download This Movie Illegally." Yet, not surprisingly, the movie was both widely available and widely downloaded this past weekend... and did amazingly well at the box office. So, at what point will those in the movie industry finally admit that unauthorized downloads aren't the problem they want them to be?

The latest Exploratorium: Maker Saturday Webcast is up - CandyFab, the sugar printer created by Windell Oskay and Lenore Edman, creates 3D sculpture by stacking 2D images made of sugar. This sweet project ties together many disciplines—motion control, woodworking, microcontroller programming, sewing, reverse engineering, circuit hacking, high-power analog electronics, 3D modeling, and computer programming.

Windell has been employed as a quantum mechanic, photographer, and (atomic) clock maker and, among other pursuits, has built an interactive dining table and hard-drive wind chimes. Lenore, who describes herself as a Pastafarian, enjoys working on bicycles, fabric, and electronics—and making edible origami.Exploratorium: Maker Saturday Webcasts - [via] Link.

Coming up:

Making Your Own Kind of Music
8/4/2007 1:00 PM PDT

When Ezra Daly couldn't find a good slap bass guitar for less than $1,000, he looked around for the materials to build his own—and the Frankenbass was born. It was created from a Moto Guzzi motorcycle gas tank, a chrome tailpipe, and scrap mahogany. Ezra will demonstrate the process of making instruments from recycled components and will play the Frankenbass. Nerdcore, hip-hop musician Doc Popular is a circuit-bender who will be performing with toy instruments he has hacked. Doc describes his approach as "anti-theory," in which he connects wires and sees what happens.

Ezra is a motorcycle luthier who created the Frankenbass on his bedroom floor to debut with a psychobilly band called Buddy's Riot. Doc Popular (aka Brian Roberts) is a video editor, marketing guru, and third-place world yo-yo champion in 2000.

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David Pescovitz: Turns out that Johnny Ryan -- creator of the amazingly absurd and fantastically offensive Angry Youth Comix that tosses political correctness right into a filthy toilet -- is also a contributor to Nickelodeon's Nick Magazine for kids. Nick is now uploading every one of Ryan's gag cartoons that appeared in the magazine. Belly laffs for the whole family!
Link (via Fantagraphics Flog!)

coondoggie writes "Today IBM will announce it is consolidating nearly 4,000 small computer servers in six locations onto about 30 refrigerator-sized mainframes running Linux, saving $250 million in the process. The 4,000 replaced servers will be recycled by IBM Global Asset Recovery Services. The six data centers currently take up over 8 million square feet, or the size of nearly 140 football fields."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

David Pescovitz: A bomb-squad recently blew up a "suspicious looking box" mounted to a tree near the Lewis-Gale Medical Center in Roanoke, Virgina. Turned out that the "bomb" was actually an amateur weather station placed there by an employee of the Center. From the Roanoke Times:

An employee had placed a putty-like substance around the box to make it weather proof.

The investigation is concluded and no criminal charges will be filed.

Link (Thanks, Paul Saffo!)

Xeni Jardin: A body washed up on the shores of New Jersey has been identified as that of missing digital artist Jeremy Blake, presumed to have committed suicide after his companion Theresa Duncan took her life in the couple's New York City apartment. Link.

Previously on BoingBoing:

Artist Jeremy Blake missing, and his girlfriend has committed suicide

Update on Jeremy Blake, Theresa Duncan: body found + CoS claims

Xeni Jardin:

BoingBoing reader Ehsan writes in with a correction to this previous BoingBoing post:

You guys made a mistake about naming Homer Simpson a pioneer of "drunk astronauts". Captain Haddock of the Tin Tin series was drunk and flying in space in 1954. Give him some credit! This link is to a scan of page 5 of the TinTin book "Explorers on the Moon" (1976), showing Haddock calling his flying whisky bubble back into his glass.

Xeni Jardin: A decision from The Federal Communications Commission today is seen as a partial win for Google and other entities that favor greater competition in the wireless voice and data market. Snip from NYT story:

The agency voted to approve rules for an auction of broadcast spectrum that the F.C.C. chairman, Kevin J. Martin, had said would promote new consumer services. The F.C.C. rules will allow customers to use whatever phone and software they want on networks using about one-third of the spectrum to be auctioned.

The F.C.C. did not approve a provision that would have required the winner of the auction to sell access to its network on a wholesale basis to other companies.

In recent weeks Google and other technology interests pressed the commission to create an open-access wireless network — in contrast to today’s closed cellular networks — and to allow owners of the spectrum to sell portions of it wholesale to other companies. That would loosen the carriers’ grip on service offerings and might also open the door to new entrants like Google.

In the model proposed by Google and new entrants to the market, consumers would be able to buy a wireless phone at a store, but instead of being forced to use a specific carrier, they would be free to pick any carrier. Moreover, instead of wireless carriers’ choosing what software goes on their phones, users would be free to put any software they want on them.

Link to NYT story.

"What this means is we won't likely have new companies enter the wireless market -- we'll be stuck with AT&T and Verizon," writes Farhad Manjoo of Salon.com. His blog post about the ruling is here.

More analysis around the web: Ars Technica, Google's Public Policy Blog, Glenn Fleishman, O'Reilly Emerging Telephony, Public Knowledge.

Previously on BoingBoing:

FCC to rule on wireless auction Tuesday; Google and telcos at odds

Mark Frauenfelder: The Rule the Web live podcast for today is canceled. I'm going to try to do it next Wednesday. Stay tuned!

We've had plenty of folks submitting to us the story that Eminem's publisher is suing Apple over Eminem songs available on iTunes. It's getting some play around the tech news and tech blog world, but everyone seems to be missing the key point. Eminem's publisher is suing the wrong party. No one denies that Universal Music Group, who distributes Eminem's music, gave Apple permission to sell his songs on iTunes. What's in dispute is if Universal had that right in the first place. In other words, it's a contractual issue between Eminem's publisher, Eight Mile Style, and Universal. Suing Apple seems to just be for the publicity of it. However, what this does demonstrate is how ridiculous it is whenever anyone presents the RIAA's views as "the music industry's views." The RIAA represents the labels, and not the musicians and not the music publishers in many cases -- all of whom have different goals. And, clearly, the label often does things that the other components of the music industry just don't like. However, it's a bit sad that Eminem's publisher has decided to sue Apple rather than the publisher with whom it has a distribution contract. In fact, the complaint is nearly identical to one that a bunch of bands filed last year. It's just that those bands (such as the Allman Brothers and Cheap Trick) had their lawyers actually sue the record label (in that case, Sony Music), rather than Apple.