Author Archive
What’s the difference between consumer marketing and propaganda?
Author: Randy Miller
To call something “propaganda” is to connote a laughably unsubtle attempt at mind control, from the kind of nasty stereotypes mocked in BioShock Infinite to a hilariously redubbed North Korean propaganda video that many thought was real — precisely because we expect such attempts to be ham-fisted and idiotic. At The Guardian, Eliane Glaser argues that we should be looking instead at how behavioral science, advertising, and even memes can nudge us in certain directions. “The notion that propaganda is always a state-run, top-down affair provides a cloak for our complicity,” she writes. “Social media’s veneer of openness and people-power exemplifies western propaganda’s habit of masquerading as its opposite.”
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T & S Electronics Micro USB OTG Cable – LIFETIME WARRANTY! (Micro USB OTG to USB Adapter. Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC ONE, Nexus 7 & Nexus 10 and all OTG compatible devices
Author: Randy Miller
T & S Electronics Micro USB OTG Cable – LIFETIME WARRANTY! (Micro USB OTG to USB Adapter. Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC ONE, Nexus 7 & Nexus 10 and all OTG compatible devices
- ONLY SOLD BY T & S ONLINE! The highest quality and highest rated OTG cable on Amazon! LIFETIME WARRANTY! U.S. Company!
- Wired game controllers bring a whole new level of fun to your device! Use an external hard drive with with your tablet or phone (*external power may be needed)!
- High quality COPPER wiring (not cheap aluminum like other brands. That can be dangerous and will fail quickly)
- USB flash drive compatible! USB mouse and keyboard connectivity!
- USB GPS, USB 3G/4G modems, memory card readers, cameras and much more!
LIFETIME WARRANTY!! Our Micro USB OTG Cable has an unconditional LIFETIME warranty. Simply return the cable to us and we’ll send you TWO new replacements free of charge. Contact us through the email address provided on the cable label for replacement or support
The T & S Electronics (TM) Micro USB OTG cable is solidly built, has sturdy connectors, high quality COPPER wiring and is the highest quality USB OTG cable you can get. This is reflected in the fact it is also the highest rated OTG cable on Amazon!
Our OTG Cable has a small but tough “L” shaped connector to better accommodate using your devices with stands and cases (see image above). Much better than the cables by major manufacturers (over-sized connectors).
Tested and works perfectly with the Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC ONE, Google Nexus 7 & Nexus 10, Acer Iconia A510, Galaxy S II (S2), galaxy SIII (S3), Xoom, Toshiba Excite AT305 and other devices that support USB Host mode.
Please be sure your device supports USB OTG before ordering! Your device may need to be rooted to use external memory!
With this Micro USB OTG cable, you can access most USB Flash Drives, Mouse, Keyboard, etc.
This USB OTG Cable also works with external hard drives! (device dependent, may need external power)
Packaged in T & S Electronics branded hermetically sealed anti-static packaging. Only sold by T & S Online.
Samsung Galaxy S4
HTC One
Nexus 7
Nexus 10
Samsung Galaxy S2
Samsung Galaxy Note 2
Xoom OTG Cable
Toshiba USB OTG host cable
Micro USB host cable
Micro USB OTG host cable
motorola camera connection kit
Samsung galaxy
List Price: $ 19.99
Price: $ 6.99
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Tags: adapter, Cable, compatible, devices, electronics, Galaxy, LIFETIME, Micro, Nexus, Samsung, Warranty | 
2 Comments »Apple iMac 27″ Desktop – MC813LL/A (May, 2011)
Author: Randy Miller
Apple iMac 20" A1174 Intel Core Duo 2GHz /2GB/ 250GB HDD / iSight Cam OSX 10.6.3
 | $149.95 (0 Bids) End Date: Sunday May-19-2013 18:26:10 PDT Buy It Now for only: $279.95 Buy It Now | Bid now | Add to watch list |
Apple iMac 10.1/ 21.5" /3.06GHz Core 2 Duo (3MB)/4GB/500GB/256MB VRAM/DVDRW (29)
 | $675.00 End Date: Saturday May-25-2013 18:37:13 PDT Buy It Now for only: $675.00 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
APPLE IMAC 24" 2.8GHz 4GB RAM MODEL 8,1 MB325LL/A 2008 NEW CONDITION COMPUTER
 | $700.00 (45 Bids) End Date: Sunday May-19-2013 18:40:52 PDT Bid now | Add to watch list |
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Samsung Galaxy S4 suojakuori muovi Leather Texture Pink
Author: Randy Miller
http://www.klc.fi/fin/tuotteet/Samsung-kotelot-laukut-ja-suojat/Samsung-Galaxy-S4-suojakuori-muovi-Leather-Texture-Pink.
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beIN Sport launches Play streaming service for cable subscribers
Author: Randy Miller
You can’t always be camped out in front of your TV for the big soccer (or “footie”) match. Thankfully, beIN Sport is hopping on the streaming bandwagon and, starting today, will offer 24/7 access on both PCs and mobile phones though Play. Of course, like many of these properties making the leap from TV to the web, beIN Sport Play requires that you have an active subscription through a cable or satellite provider. At first only Time Warner and Bright House subscribers will have access, though other networks will come online over the next few months. Play will also offer unique features such as email alerts 30 minutes before the beginning of an event and the ability to watch alternative streams and un-broadcast matches. Now, if only beIN could convince Americans to care about soccer in the first place…
Filed under: HD
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Editor’s Letter: 3D printing grows up
Author: Randy Miller
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news.
Another week with Google Glass and, as I grow more accustomed to having it in my life, I find myself struggling more and more to come up with reasons to wear the thing. I’m still very happy to stop on the street and give people a demo, but if I’m being honest, I don’t need that much attention from strangers in my life. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still very excited about the potential here, but it’s safe to say the novelty is running out.
Still, this week Glass did get a nice improvement. The XE5 update was released late Tuesday night and shipped with a series of small but important niceties, like notifications from Google+ and the ability to do a search from anywhere in the UI. Unfortunately, this update also changes things such that uploads will only occur from the headset when it’s plugged in and on WiFi. That’ll help battery life — at a somewhat unfortunate cost to wireless functionality.
Filed under: Misc, Blackberry
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Incase Snap Case for the iPhone 4
Author: Randy Miller
Video Rating: 0 / 5
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OUYA Closes $15 Million In Funding Led By Kleiner Perkins, Boasts 12,000 Game Developer Sign-Ups
Author: Randy Miller
Today, gaming console and software company OUYA announced that they have closed a $ 15 million round led by Kleiner Perkins, and with participation from the Mayfield Fund, NVIDIA, Shasta Ventures and Ocean Partners. This marks one of the largest institutional investments to go to a project that had its humble beginnings on Kickstarter.
OUYA is a company that launched back in 2012 on Kickstarter under the guiding hands of Julie Uhrman, a video game industry veteran who believes that gaming should be affordable and enjoyable for everyone. She and the team developed a $ 99 Android gaming console, which hooks into the TV and comes with automatic access to free-to-try games. It launched on the crowdfunding site to much fanfare, scoring $ 8.6 million in funding, which ends up being around 9x more than OUYA asked.
Along with the $ 15 million round, which brings OUYA’s total amount of funding to $ 23.5 million, the company will also be bringing KPCB General Partner Bing Gordon on to the board of directors. Gordon brings with him years of experience from Electronic Arts.
Here’s what he had to say about the funding:
OUYA’s open source platform creates a new world of opportunity for established and emerging independent game creators and gamers alike. There are some types of games that can only be experienced on a TV, and OUYA is squarely focused on bringing back the living room gaming experience. OUYA will allow game developers to unleash their most creative ideas and satisfy gamers craving a new kind of experience.
The OUYA hardware has proven its spot in the market with the successful Kickstarter project, followed by an institutional investment led by a firm such as KPCB. “The message is clear: people want OUYA,” said Uhrman.
But the same story rings true for software, as the company has seen over 12,000 developers sign up for the platform to build games and monetize them in any way they’d like. This is up from 8,000 developer signups in March.
And if that weren’t enough, OUYA has been picked up by major retailers like GameStop, Best Buy and Amazon, with availability originally intended to begin June 4. OUYA is pushing that back to June 25, however, announcing the delay today as a result of a desire to be able to meet initial demand.
Clearly, the affordable gaming console speaks to people. But is it enough to make OUYA profitable? In an interview with TechCrunch, Uhrman explained that OUYA essentially breaks even on the hardware from the $ 99 gaming console, and that all games will be free-to-try. Curious if that was sustainable, we asked Uhrman if free-to-try would always be the case with OUYA games.
“Free to try is a core tenet of OUYA,” said Uhrman. “We wanted a gaming experience for the television that’s inexpensive to get into. Developers monetize however they’d like to, which is why we have games with unlockable demos inside a fully paid version, or micro-transactions, and even a donation based game. I’m looking forward to the first episodic, subscription-based game,” she said.
According to Uhrman, the latest round from KPCB and friends will go toward further supporting game developers and development, bringing in exclusive and unique OUYA content, and meeting the demand seen from all parts of the world, including Japan, Brazil, Germany, Spain, and Italy.
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White House taps former Twitter lawyer as first Chief Privacy Officer
Author: Randy Miller
Two months after appointing Todd Park as Chief Technology Officer, the White House has picked Nicole Wong for the newly created position of Chief Privacy Officer. Details about the job are still MIA, but she’ll likely be working closely with Park. One thing’s for sure, though: Wong brings some serious Silicon Valley cred to the table, having worked on product copyright and privacy issues at Google for eight years and, more recently, serving as Twitter’s legal director. If you recall, the EFF gave that social network high marks when it released its annual report last week — an auspicious sign if we’ve ever seen one.
Filed under: Internet
Via: CNet
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What You Need To Know About The Liberator 3D-Printed Pistol
Author: Randy Miller
Now that we have confirmation that the Liberator 3D-printed pistol can be fired without destroying the body, let’s address what this means for 3D printed weapons and, presumably, homemade weapons in general.
Does the pistol work? Yes, it can be fired at least once without damage to the body of the gun or the person at the trigger. Andy Greenberg at Forbes has seen the gun fire multiple times and the video above shows one shot.
Is it a real pistol? No. This is more of a zip gun than a pistol. Zip guns were improvised firearms made of tubes, rubber bands, and nails. Kids fool-hardy enough to shoot one (this cohort included my own father who showed me how to make them) were promised a second of hair-raising and potentially deadly excitement when they made zip guns out of pipe and rubber. To fire one, you fitted the cartridge into the pipe and pulled back on the nail attached to the rubber band. If it hit the charger properly the bullet would fire. A similar thing is happening here: a spring-loaded nail is hitting a cartridge.
The barrel of the gun is threaded but I wouldn’t expect this weapon to be very accurate. Think of this gun as a controlled explosion generator. It uses a very small .380 caliber bullet which is deadly, to be sure, but quite small.
Could I print one? Yes. You can easily download the 3D-printable files from DEFCAD.org (here is a private mirror) and if you have a 3D printer you can easily print any of these parts.
The creators built this gun using the Stratasys Dimension SST 3D printer, a high-resolution printer that works similarly to the Makerbot but offers a far finer and more durable print. This printer has a layer thickness of .25mm, however, which the Makerbot can easily match.
Would I print and fire this using on my Replicator? No. I’m far too risk averse. I asked multiple 3D home printer manufactures and none would comment specifically on firearms, so there is no implicit or explicit promise of safety.
Will someone try to print it on home equipment? Yes.
Is this legal? Yes, but I’m no lawyer. It is a legal, homemade firearm and those have been made in basement workshops for most of this century. In most cases, a Federal Firearms License is mandatory to begin making or manufacturing weapons. For example, anyone building this gun would be a “Manufacturer of Destructive Devices, Ammunition for Destructive Devices or Armor Piercing Ammunition.” Anyone can apply for this license, thereby making the manufacture of this thing legal. For decades, however, the need to license was a minor barrier to entry into what would be a non-trivial process. The tools and materials necessary to build a real gun in your basement were expensive and it made economic sense to legally safeguard your home workshop. The manufacture of a 3D-printed weapon, however, is trivial, and can be built by anyone with an investment of $ 8,000 or so for a Stratasys printer or, for the less risk-averse, a home 3D printer that costs about $ 2,000.
It is also designed to comply with the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988 because it contains a small block of steel. From the print instructions:
-Print (ONLY) the frame sideways (the shortest dimension is the Z axis). USC18 922(p)(2)(A)*: “For the purposes of this subsection (The Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988) – the term ‘firearm’ does not include the frame or receiver of any such weapon;”
Thus, you can legally print ONLY the frame entirely in plastic, even without 3.7 ounces of steel.-Once the frame is finished, epoxy a 1.19×1.19×0.99″ block of steel in the 1.2×1.2×1.0″ hole in front of the trigger guard. Add the bottom cover over the metal if you don’t want it to show.-Once the epoxy has tried, the steel is no longer removable, and is an integral part of the frame. Now your gun has ~6 ounces of steel and is thus considered a ‘detectable’ firearm. So now you can print all the other parts.
It is, in short, legal to make a gun and this is a gun.
Can this be stopped? No.
What’s next? The cynic would say we will soon see the first murder with a 3D-printed gun. The cynic will also say that this will cast 3D printing in an entirely new, more sinister light and could affect the home printing industry dramatically. The cynic would also expect a great deal of messy legislature to come out of this that will, depending on which side of the gun debate you fall on, “get these off the streets” or “infringe on our rights.”
A cynic would also say that the entire Defense Distributed agenda is an example of trolling that will eventually do more harm than good. The cynic would also say that a harsh government crackdown would also be equally silly.
A nuanced approach is absolutely necessary.
The non-cynical would find this to be more a proof of concept than a real manufactured weapon and say that it was bound to happen eventually. 3D printing has made manufacturing trivial. This is a logical evolution of an entrenched industry and a centuries-old product. Gunsmithing is not a new hobby. However, it just got much easier.
