Engagemedia has posted a great, lengthy, detailed report on free and open video formats and tools. The report is a roadmap for people who want to make non-proprietary videos that anyone can make a player for without paying royalties or being saddled with restrictions on playing and copying. The report pays special attention to usability, laying out a path for video-makers that makes use of the easiest tools out there. From the executive summary:

Codecs and Containers

The use of two FOSS video and audio codec combinations are recommended:

* Xvid/LAME Use of the Xvid codec for video and LAME codec for audio in the medium term as both codecs are well developed and generally well supported but are encumbered with patent issues that mean they may be plagued with legal issues into the future.
* Ogg Theora/Vorbis Use of the Ogg format, Theora video codec and Vorbis audio codec as they are patent-free technologies that have seen great improvements in usability and the number and quality of tools available to create and play them is increasing.

Players

There are many good FOSS players of both Xvid/LAME and Ogg Theora/Vorbis available, some more suitable for certain purposes than others. However the recommendation is that Transmission projects promote the use of one player application primarily, VLC, in order to share documentation and training resources more easily by adopting the same software:

* VLC Use VLC as it is highly-developed FOSS media player for FOSS codecs available on all platforms.

Link (Thanks, Lachlan!)

Wal-Mart has reportedly demanded that the major labels release more of their catalog in DRM-free MP3 format, apparently buoyed by the relative success of their DRM-free MP3 store (at least when compared to the red-ink-fest that is every DRM music store except, perhaps, iTunes).

In a bid for more of the digital download space, the brick-and-mortar retailer heavyweight has reportedly given an ultimatum to some of the largest record labels, including Warner Music Group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment, to provide more of their respective music catalogs in MP3 format (that is, without DRM) next year.

Link (Thanks, Glyn!)

Coin designer Daniel Carr mints small private runs of "fantasy currency" (the Amero is the notional currency of the equally notional Union of North America) and "parody quarters" (a quarter depicting Daniel Carr in cool shades, an East Virginia quarter bearing the legend, "Tell WV to get off my back," the Oregon "recycling" quarter, the "Keep away from Indianapolis" quarter", etc).

My goal with these coins is not to endorse a Union of North America or a common "Amero" currency. I fully support the United States Constitution, and I would not welcome (in any form) a diminishment of its provisions. I expect that these coins will help make more people aware of the issue and the possible ramifications. I leave it up to others to decide if they are in favor of, or against a North American Union. And I encourage citizens to voice their approval or disapproval of government plans that impact them.

Link (via Beyond the Beyond)

On today's episode of Boing Boing tv, CRAFT Magazine editor Carla Sinclair (who co-founded the original bOING bOING zine) gives us a tour of Felt Club 2007, an annual showcase of cool handmade crafts.

Link to video, full BBtv post, and comments thread.

molrak writes "SixApart tonight announced the sale of journal/blogging service Livejournal to Russia-based SUP. Original LJ founder Brad Fitzpatrick has chimed in on the situation: 'This is pretty cool because - They're ridiculously excited about LiveJournal, and have been for awhile (they previous purchased advertising rights in Russia, but ended up doing a bunch of Russia-specific LJ development as well). They want to throw a lot of resources at LiveJournal in terms of product development and engineers. "LiveJournal.com, Inc." now stands alone again, focusing on nothing but LJ. Sounds like I'll have more LJ influence (via new role as advisory board member) than I've had recently.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Here are some of my favorite posts from the CRAFT blog this week:

• Recycled Computer Cat Bed - Link.
• HOW TO - Make Fabric Mittens - Link.
• Modern Paper Ornaments - Link.
• HOW TO - Make Pinecone Bird Feeders - Link.
• Refab Sustainable Doorstops - Link.

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conlaw writes with a somewhat intimidating Washington Post article. "The federal government disclosed details yesterday of a border-security program to screen all people who enter and leave the United States, create a terrorism risk profile of each individual and retain that information for up to 40 years ... The risk assessment is created by analysts at the National Targeting Center, a high-tech facility opened in November 2001 and now run by Customs and Border Protection. In a round-the-clock operation, targeters match names against terrorist watch lists and a host of other data to determine whether a person's background or behavior indicates a terrorist threat, a risk to border security or the potential for illegal activity. They also assess cargo."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

@ the Blip festival 6955 had a Famicon IN a Casio! There might be a kit or unit for sale soon too! - Link.

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Eddan writes:

The Information Society Project at Yale Law School is proud to present Reputation Economies in Cyberspace. The symposium will be held on December 8, 2007 at Yale Law School in New Haven, CT.

This event will bring together representatives from industry, government, and academia to explore themes in online reputation, community-mediated information production, and their implications for democracy and innovation. The symposium is made possible by the generous support of the Microsoft Corporation.

Link (Thanks, Eddan!)

Roland Piquepaille writes "When we think about alternative sources of energy, we often forget the potential of geothermal energy resources. In fact, it has been estimated that accessible geothermal energy in the U.S. represents 90 quadrillion kilowatt-hours or 3,000 times the country's total annual energy consumption. So far, it has been difficult and expensive to locate good sources of geothermal energy. But now, two U.S. researchers have found a new method which doesn't require drilling. They are using the ratio of helium isotopes in surface waters to point to the best sources of geothermal energy."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

My next novel, Little Brother, is my first kids' book, a young adult novel about hacker kids in San Francisco who fight the anti-terrorist cops to reinstate the bill of rights ("A rousing tale of techno-geek rebellion, as necessary and dangerous as file sharing, free speech, and bottled water on a plane." - Scott Westerfeld, author of UGLIES and EXTRAS). Tor Books's brilliant Art Director Irene Gallo worked with designer Peter Lutjen to create the cover for the book -- the best one I've had to date. She's got a post up on her book design blog that goes into some detail on the creative process.

Peter Lutjen came up with a bunch of different designs that eventually evolved into the final. The penultimate version used a photo-realistic illustration that everyone almost loved. One last tweak of the design was to have the imagery re-drawn in a freer more organic style by Yuko Shimizu -- that seemed to unify everything to everyone’s liking.

Link

Switzerland's government has silently adopted a brutal copyright law based on America's failed Digital Millennium Copyright Act -- but with 50,000 signatures, the law can be reversed.

Switzerland's new law criminalizes breaking digital locks -- circumventing "digital rights management" technology -- and telling other people how to break those locks. This means that even when you have the right to access a song, video, book or document, no one is allowed to show you how to get at the data. If the law says you're allowed to -- for example -- convert a song you bought on iTunes to play it on a non-Apple player, you still can't do so, because no one is allowed to make or sell or even give away a tool that helps you do this.

Because of Switzerland's principal of direct democracy, this law can be overturned if 50,000 Swiss citizens sign a petition asking for it to be reconsidered. Here's a petition that starts the ball rolling. Tell your friends! Link (Thanks, Florian!)

See also: Swiss DMCA coming down -- 50,000 signatures needed to unmake it

explosivejared writes "The Washington Post is running a story on the fight between publishers and search engines over just what exactly is allowed to be shown by search results. From the article: 'The desire for greater control over how search engines index and display Web sites is driving an effort launched yesterday by leading news organizations and other publishers to revise a 13-year-old technology for restricting access. Currently, Google, Yahoo and other top search companies voluntarily respect a Web site's wishes as declared in a text file known as robots.txt, which a search engine's indexing software, called a crawler, knows to look for on a site ... [new] proposed extensions, known as Automated Content Access Protocol, partly grew out of those disputes. Leading the ACAP effort were groups representing publishers of newspapers, magazines, online databases, books and journals. The AP is one of dozens of organizations that have joined ACAP."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

VincenzoRomano writes "It's official! KDE 4.0 will be released on January 11th of next year. The release itself doesn't sound very firm, as 'the developers are confident to be able to release a more polished and better working KDE' and not the long awaited prime-time release. At the very first Alpha release on march 11th, the release date had been forecasted to October 2007, and then shifted to the end of the year with the second Beta. Despite this, the promises for the fourth version are quite interesting and maybe deserve a 'stay tuned'."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ebon Praetor writes "The BBC reports that Blizzard and Activision have announced an $18.8bn merger. Activision's CEO, Bobby Kotick, will become the head of the joint company, while Vivendi, Blizzard's current parent company, will become the largest single investor in the new group. Even with the size of the merger, the combined company will still be smaller than the industry giant EA. 'As part of the merger plan, Blizzard will invest $2bn in the new company, while Activision is putting up $1bn. The merged business will be called Activision Blizzard and its chief executive will be Activision's current CEO Bobby Kotick. Vivendi will be the biggest shareholder in the group.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

jessekeys writes "Two days ago an article on TechCrunch about IRSeeK revealed to the community that a service logs conversations of public IRC channels and put them into a public searchable database. What is especially shocking for the community is that the logging bots are very hard to identify. They have human-like nicks, connect via anonymous Tor nodes and authenticate as mIRC clients. IRSeeK never asked for permission and violates the privacy terms of networks and users. A lot of chatters were deeply disturbed finding themselves on the search engine in logs which could date back to 2005. As a result, Freenode, the largest FOSS IRC network in existence, immediately banned all tor connections while the community gathered and set up a public wiki page to share knowledge and news about IRSeeK. The demands are clear: remove all existing logs and stop covert operations in our channels and networks. Right now, the IRSeeK search is unavailable as there are talks talking place with Freenode Staff."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's fascinating to watch the back and forth between Bill Keller, a top editorial guy at the NY Times, and Jeff Jarvis, a NY blogger who they look to for an authoritative view of blogging as it relates to journalism.

http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/11/30/updating-bill-keller/

I don't want to presume to speak for Jarvis, but I share his obvious frustration at the way Keller spins the blogger position. God help us if the bloggers replace professional journalists, but also god help us if the professionals don't start taking their jobs seriously. Someone needs to watch the people who run the show, who manage the US budget and military, run the education system, keep the trains and garbage trucks running. If it's not the Times, who would it be? I don't trust any of my fellow bloggers to do it.

Keller's comments are about as irresponsible as our President's insistence that Congress is to blame for his mistakes. It's a joke -- you don't have to look very deeply to see that Congress was Republican for most of Bush's tenure, and the bloggers are, like Congress, looking for some leadership from the professionals. Keller, if you want permission to keep doing the same sloppy business in the future that you've been doing in the past, you won't get that from us bloggers. We want you to do better. And you can start by quoting Jarvis accurately.

ProfJonathan writes "My daughter just got a DS from the grandparents for her 6th birthday. She's only beginning to read, but wants a bunch of games of her own rather than just playing her older brothers' games. She got Nintendogs with the DS, so that's taken care of, but other relatives are asking what she might want. Can anyone recommend some good DS games that don't require reading skill, that might be age-appropriate and interesting for a 1st grade girl?" Wouldn't it be creepy if the kid had a really good brain age?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.