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Five Years Ago In the past five years, we've been convinced that Title II is a necessary step in the right direction for net neutrality — but back in 2010, we still holding out hope that the problem could be solved purely with competition. Nonetheless, we could already see the utter ridiculousness of most anti-regulation arguments and the bad behaviour of ISPs, from warning about the death of iPhones to blocking broadband stimulus efforts or favoring marketing lawsuits over service improvement. And we weren't convinced when the FCC chair said that Google Fiber represents enough viable competition. These were also the early days of the New York Times paywall, when folks were still debating its fundamental structure and studying the question of how willing people are to pay for content online. Meanwhile the Times itself, like many other publishers, was attempting to sell people an expensive iPad edition (despite the obvious fact that pretty much all the same things can be done on the web). To some, the future of journalism was more about curation, or maybe even pay-what-you-want. The USTR's infamous Special 301 report came out this week in 2010, and for the first time included an open comment system which we promptly utilized. It was nice and all, but it's really time to scrap the program altogether. And if you want to talk about copyright, maybe look at Public Knowledge's sensible ideas for reform. Ten Years Ago The future of digital journalism was even less clear this week in 2005. Some newspapers thought the best approach was to keep lots of content offline. The New York Times, for its part, bought About.com (since sold to Barry Diller's IAC). Of course, iPad editions weren't exactly an issue yet — at this time, analysts were still arguing about the distinction between PDAs and smartphones. That didn't stop lots of companies from pushing mobile TV, though, and while we still weren't sure how big of a draw it that would really be, we were happy to see Showtime start experimenting with straightforward online streaming. This was the year that SHA-1 encryption was broken. Unfortunately, a decade later it's still in widespread use — though most companies are on track to deprecate it by 2017. Also in 2005: some states were rejecting red light cameras while others were demonstrating their problems, an Italian DJ was fined over a million euros for his MP3 collection, a tattoo artist sued the NBA for showing his artwork, manufacturers were starting to make ultra-cheap phones for developing nations while companies at home were jumping on the gadget giveaway bandwagon, and we were catching on to the practice of UK libel tourism. Fifteen Years Ago Ah, 2000 — the not-exactly-dawn of the new millennium, and a time of much philosophizing and prophesying about technology. The New York Times (popular this week) realized we were stuck with the internet for better or worse; Forbes opined on the parallels between the internet and railroads; Salon debunked the idea that the internet makes us lonely; and everyone was trying to have their say about the wireless future. Some people were tackling more immediate, practical questions: does internet sex count as prostitution? Should married couples share an email address? Are online customers less loyal? And, critically, should Jeeves answer questions about sex? Oh, and there was one very notable release this week in 2000: the original version of The Sims. Sixty-Nine & Thirty-Seven Years Ago We've got two milestones in the history of the internet and computing this week. First, on February 15th, 1946, the ENIAC was formally dedicated. It was the world's first general-purpose electronic computer, containing 17,468 vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, 1,500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and around 5 million hand-soldered joints according to Wikipedia. Next, just a few decades later, after a snowstorm gave them few options other than cabin fever or feverish engineering, two Chicago men launched CBBS, the world's first bulletin board system on February 16th, 1978.

For this week's awesome stuff, we're talking all about monitors, projectors and display technology. Beam My first thought about Beam — a compact projector that plugs into any light socket and is controlled by your smartphone — was that it's a great idea. My second thought was that it can't possibly be bright enough. But, refreshingly, the video and pictures of the device in action don't make any attempt to deceive on this front: the projections are shown to be rather dim, but still visible, which is the best you could expect from 100 lumens. It's limiting, but it doesn't make it useless, and in the right circumstances for the right applications, Beam could be a very cool solution. Displio In a world of rapid device convergence, there's still something very attractive about the idea of dedicated single-purpose units like Displio: a small, configurable wi-fi display that can monitor anything from the weather to an eBay auction. Sure, you could get a smartphone widget or a desktop screensaver to do that job, but would it really feel the same? Some people already do this, at a high cost — I recently visited an office where every conference room was managed by a separate wall-mounted iPad with the sole purpose of scheduling meetings. The Displio looks like it can do that job for $100 a pop. ScreenStick This one's not a display, but a display accessory. The rise of mobile gaming has brought with it a revolutionary wave of innovative game design tailored for touch screens, but it's also brought a slew of games that struggle to force traditional control schemes onto these radically different devices. The most common and frustrating of these is the simulated on-screen joystick, which never feels natural and puts a huge cognitive barrier between the player and total immersion. The ScreenStick is not the first attempt to solve that problem by attaching a true joystick right to your touchscreen, but it is one of the nicest designs and best prices I've seen, perhaps capable of becoming a mainstream accessory among the mobile gamers of the world.

We've made the argument for some time that a good modding community and culture is a boon for games and game creators. Far from the dangerous infringement on the original works that some seem to think, a prolific modding community can lengthen the shelf life of a game, improve it for customers of the original work, and even allow the original work to spiral off into unforseen directions, all of which only serve to increase the game's playability, replayability, and fun factor, making it all the more attractive for purchase.

We've had a bunch of posts today (and yesterday) about the "Superfish" debacle, with a few of them focusing on Lenovo failing to recognize what a problem it was -- first denying any serious security problem, and then calling it "theoretical." It appears that Lenovo has now realized it totally screwed up and is finally saying so. Speaking to Re/code, CTO Peter Hortensius has changed his tune from the "theoretical" problem he discussed earlier:

The hot sauce that has gotten insanely popular over the past few years is getting into everything. Several fast food chains -- Pizza Hut, Dominoes, Taco Bell, Subway, Jack In The Box, Panda Express, Wendy's -- have added Sriracha to their menu in some way. There's no trademark on Sriracha, so there's no legal friction to using the name/product. Maybe some products aren't using the real sauce, but it's still free advertising for the authentic Sriracha. (And do you really want to risk alienating the rabid fans of Sriracha just to save a few bucks using a knock-off hot sauce?)

I pointed out earlier that it was fairly astounding that Superfish was basically remaining mostly quiet on the whole controversy over its software. If you've been under a rock, earlier this week, the security community pointed out how Superfish's software (installed by default on certain Lenovo laptops) created a massive security vulnerability. Superfish itself is adware, but that's the least of the problems. The software doesn't track your behavior like other adware, but instead tries to insert other buying options when you're viewing images of certain products. It tries to find the same or similar products that you can buy for less and tell you about them. I could see how that might be interesting for some people on some shopping sites if they chose to use the software. But, by being a default bloatware install on Lenovo laptops, there was no choice. Furthermore, it apparently was trying to do this on every website. And that's where the real problem came in.

Let's play out a little thought experiment. Let's say that a corporation involved in the money business has a logo for themselves. Now, let's say that two separate trademark holders both claim that this company's logo is too similar to their own. However, let's also stipulate in this scenario that the two offended trademark holders, who both claim similarity concerns with the finance company's logo, aren't bothering to file against each other for trademark claims, even though both are intimately knowledgeable of the other. Now, just to really make all this as face-palming-ly silly as possible, let's consider that these are the three logos in question:

For a couple of years now, Chicago taxi companies have been making all kinds of noise in an attempt to keep Uber and other ridesharing services from disrupting the marketplace. The whole thing has been a fairly transparent case of a jealous legacy player in an industry not loving a disruptive newcomer. That said, there's precious little validity in a claim against a city or competitor that mostly amounts to: "But I really like all that money I was making."

When you get down to it, there are two central overlapping reasons to be opposed to torture. One is that it's wrong, and the other is that it's ineffective. The latter pretty much seals the deal on the former, since the only way someone could even conceivably argue that it's not wrong is if it's clearly preventing more harm than it causes, which has never been the case. After a commenter questioned some of these conclusions, That One Guy won first place for insightful by providing a thorough and excellent rebuttal:

Five Years Ago This week, let's start by going global. In 2010, Italy blocked the Pirate Bay (again) while Norway refused to do so. The UK was still grappling with the Digital Economy Bill and its onerous provisions, Australia was trying to make Google censor YouTube videos and Iran was trying to pull the plug on Gmail and offer a state-run email service in its place. Meanwhile in Bollywood, one studio was experimenting with simultaneous theater and YouTube releases. A major Icelandic newspaper banned aggregators, while at the same time the country was announcing plans to become a haven of free speech and journalism. And many countries came together for two things: the Winter Olympics (once again utterly mishandled by NBC) and the ACTA treaty (oh sorry, I mean "executive agreement"). Today, many US cities are competing for a shot at Google Fiber, but it was this week in 2010 that the project was first announced — though we knew it couldn't spur real broadband competition all by itself. In the world of media, you can guess what was happening, because it's always the same: various companies were struggling to figure things out with varying levels of success and denial. Warner Music was dancing around the obvious fact that hiking the price of music downloads slowed sales growth, and at the same time announcing the end of all free streaming licenses. Meanwhile, the Author's Guild was still fighting over Google Books, and trying to separate itself from groups like the RIAA — while a former music exec was telling them they were more alike than they realize. One author was complaining that ten bucks is an absurdly low price for ebooks, while at the same time new research showed that unauthorized ebook copies boost sales. Ten Years Ago Today, the anti-net-neutrality argument that people don't need or want faster broadband and wireless speeds is ludicrous, self-serving and shortsighted — but, admittedly, in 2005 things weren't quite so clear. There was some evidence that people couldn't find enough to do with broadband and were even giving it up for dialup, and the hype over forthcoming 3G was stymied by the fact that a lot of people weren't sure why they needed it. Of course, there was also already something fishy about the cable companies trying to downplay the importance of speed and the think-tanks railing against muni broadband. And today we know how things really played out: having all that broadband penetration led to the development of new, robust applications and services that nobody could have easily envisioned beforehand. Of course, this was 2005, so plenty of people were still clueless about technology, including lots of politicians — the British parliament even banned Blackberries. People were still trying to foist self-destructing DVDs on the public, and cable television was feebly trying to mimic the internet. But we also saw the emergence of trends that are clear and dominant today: the use of email as a persistent storage and filing tool, the abandonment of landline phones, and the fact that musicians don't make money from copyright (that last one, while clear and dominant in reality, is not necessarily so in the minds of industry folk). Also this week in 2005: Google Maps was launched, and so was MP3tunes (guess which one is still around!), we saw some of the earliest examples of companies freaking out about negative reviews, and Salon founder Dave Talbot stepped down. Fifteen Years Ago In 2000, we see the even deeper roots of even bigger trends. The severity of cybercrime was becoming clear, and DoS attacks were getting lots of attention — but also already often being blown out of proportion with lots of conspiracy theories and rumors of inside jobs attached to various incidents. People were predicting the post-PC era and the death of the newspaper (which still haven't quite arrived) and the coming wireless web (which absolutely has). People liked to toss around bold proclamations about the internet being dead or not dead or whatever the case may be, it was no longer cool to include ".com" in the name of your company, and people were rightfully asking questions about the future of online privacy. We also started noticing the growth of a questionable (and now extremely common) trend in tech startup culture: companies built with the sole purpose of being acquired for a cash-out. Seventy-Seven Years Ago If you're a fan of Star Trek, or Dr. Who, or Battlestar Galactica, or anything else from the pantheon of television science fiction both old and new, then you should know that it all started this week in 1938 when the BBC aired the first known science fiction TV program. What's more, the program was itself an adaptation of a monumental piece of sci-fi history: R.U.R., the 1920 Czech play that introduced the word "robot" to the English language and the sci-fi genre.

For this week's awesome stuff, we've got some assorted pieces of new crowdfunded audio gear. waveBlend The folks behind the waveBlend make a pretty good point: rigging up a house-wide wireless audio system is still a lot more annoying than it needs to be. The best systems out there are expensive, proprietary and always centralized around some sort of master unit. The waveBlend system does away with that: each modular cubic speaker connect to existing WiFi network and teams up with all the others (up to a dozen — however many you need, wherever you need them) to create a no-hassle home audio setup. gMIX On the one hand, the gMIX isn't as big a deal as the creator might want to make it sound — a four-channel audio mixer that runs "without batteries" is just a passive line mixer and not a technological breakthrough. That said, the best products aren't always revolutionary, and gMIX does appear to be filling a gap: pro audio gear is expensive, there aren't that many choices of passive mixers around compared to active (powered) ones, and most such gear includes lots of additional features that aren't needed for a lot of applications. The gMIX, on the other hand, is cheap and simple and gets the job done. Gigcaster A lot of the innovation around live streaming focuses on video, while audio is often left to languish in "good enough" territory. That's fine for meetings and conferences and speeches, but not so great for music. Enter the Gigcaster: a compact, standalone unit with the sole purpose of making it easy to broadcast quality live music online. This initial model is built using Raspberry Pi, and there are plans to move towards a more fully-featured production model — but there's also a huge focus on hackability, with the device running open source software and allowing for user-made firmware pushes.

So the saga of the Left Shark and Katy Perry's lawyers keeps getting more and more strange. We've already covered the legal threat from Perry's lawyers to the guy who was offering a 3D printed figurine of the Left Shark, followed by the response explaining to Perry's lawyers that there is no copyright in left shark, leading to Perry's lawyers to issue a uh huh there is... while also using the figurine maker's own photo of his 3D printed shark in their (now abandoned) trademark application.

I'm excited about the upcoming world of privatized space flight. I think it will enable all sorts of innovations and explorations where NASA has cut back. Elon Musk's SpaceX is obviously the big name player in the space right now, though there are plenty of others working to get in as well. However, as Parker Higgins recently noted, one unfortunate downside of a new privatized space world is that space photos like the ones SpaceX just released... are likely not in the public domain. NASA has a huge gallery of public domain imagery that has been tremendously useful. This is in contrast to the European Space Agency, which uses copyright to block access to images. Hopefully that's not something we're coming to in the US, because then it would be a lot more difficult to share photos like this: That said, there are still at least some questions about whether or not the images are really covered by copyright. Even though SpaceX is working with NASA, that doesn't matter, because government contractors have always been able to retain their copyright. It's only works created by government employees that are automatically public domain.

Fad diets and diet recommendations seem to change every few years. Whole eggs were bad for you, but now they should be considered as part of a balanced diet. What makes a diet balanced? More carbs? Less Fat? Maybe you should just walk every day to your nearest Subway and only eat sandwiches. Or maybe you can just track your calories and eat whatever you want. Or not.

For many years, we've been covering the story of Myriad Genetics, the biotech company that has a test for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes (often an indicator of a higher risk for breast cancer). The company argued that because of its patent on those genes, no one else could test for those genes. Back in 2013, the Supreme Court did the right thing and finally rejected the concept of gene patents, despite years of the USPTO granting such patents. As the court noted, allowing gene patents created a perverse situation in which a single company could have the exclusive right to isolate a person's own genes -- and that's just not right.

A California law requiring registered sex offenders to turn over a wealth of information related to their internet use to police will not go into effect, thanks to both a Ninth Circuit Court decision and the state's attorney general, who has decided not to petition the Supreme Court to examine the ruling.

There are multiple ways to handle a super-sensitive situation like this one. The following is none of them. [via CJ Ciaramella]