Nvidia's Perez: "They act as our 'voice'" - Consumerist: "The Consumerist feels that it would be more useful to our readers—the same people you’re both marketing to and occasionally giving free products—to talk this through in public, since the public are the very people who are affected by your relations.
So from what we gather, Nvidia does not hire actors to create trusted personas on internet forums. This is a very good thing, and we are glad to hear you clarify that this is not the case.
Instead, Nvidia takes existing trusted users from the web community and gives them free Nvidia hardware in exchange for PR duties.
This brings us to ‘disclosure.’
By giving away free hardware to fans who are not required to disclose the gift—and why should they, as they are not employees or members of the press?—you’ve created a precarious situation for the communities in which these fans are involved.
Without knowing who gets free hardware from Nvidia as a reward and who is simply a fan of the product based on its own merit, it makes it difficult for us to trust the greater Nvidia fan community at large. The very program you’ve instigated to take advantage of goodwill itself poisons the trust we might otherwise have in your fan community.
So speaking of disclosure, an anonymous Consumerist reader writes:
I spoke on the phone with Stephanie at AEG after this story broke in an effort to investigate the situation. She flat-out told me that AEG actively seeks influential members of message boards to approach for membership in their marketing program. These members are required to sign a NDA about the program’s very existence. The recent news I was told by a member of this program is that NVIDIA is now offering them 30” widescreen LCDs. This suggests just how much $$$ is being poured into this new outreach effort.
These people are indeed viral marketers, but NVIDIA also expects them to provide the company feedb"
---------
find all of these remarks disparaging Nvidia to be in rather poor taste. Nvidia cards are quite simply, the best cards on the market. Infact, just the other day I was playing with my GeForce 7800 series and I realized that it was capable of
transparency supersampling. You won't believe how good it looks until you see it for yourself! I have a friend who likes ATI and he's always coming over to my house just to look at the
transparency supersampling. Often times he likes to remark on the
high dynamic range lighting effects as well...
But wait, theres more, using subsurface scattering you can render skin textures off of your favorite 3d games to an unparalleled degree...
*typing this on his thirty inch monitor*
by
mrscolex on
02/06/0----------------
http://wifinetnews.com/archives/006266.html
Lest Fon be seen as entirely new and unique exclusive of the three firms mentioned before that tried this model using cheap computers and software instead of commodity gateways and firmware—Joltage, SOHONetworks, and Sputnik—remember that LessNetworks and Radiuz have been offering community authentication for a while. LessNetworks has been kicking around for a couple of years, a for-profit outgrowth of the Austin Wireless City Project that offers a gateway page, community features, and user accounts for free access for a small management fee; they donate their services to nonprofits and others, too. Radiuz is free WPA Enterprise authentication, which combines secure logins and unique WPA encryption keys with RADIUS features found in virtually all consumer and enterprise gateways. Radiuz started up a year ago.
Update: I must be naive, but thought of this as a relatively small story. I am now seeing separate accounts in practically every major newspaper and publication in the world—I suppose Skype (eBay) and Google will do that to a company. Read what Doc Searls has to say about it, and also David Weinberger, who is part of Fon’s US advisory council.
Update: Fortune’s article mentions that the Fon founder brought on board to that US advisory council a whole array of digerati and A-List technology bloggers.
=========
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ratcliffe/?p=67
"It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to have to paint it."
,.../...
That Google is involved, which has its own VPN client that will tie users to their advertising services when they log in, suggests to me that a very large amount of revenue could be put in play by the FON project. I think, therefore, that the system will face a challenge when a tide of Linuses realize that there is revenue of which even Bills aren't getting any share.
If the Wi-Fi network is serving as a secure entry for Google, allowing Google to collect even more personal information and tie its advertising to network access, especially to facilitate deeply localized ad placement, FON's real revenue model will have very little to do with access fees paid by Aliens.
Instead, FON seems poised to be the last mile carrier that is subsidized by Google, Skype and others. It's infrastructure, because it would be mostly donated, is cheap enough to make a viable economic foundation for an alternative network.
But that only creates a question of whether the user wants to trade personal information to Google in exchange for access or if they want to pay a "traditional carrier" for access.
========
http://mobilecrunch.com/
Google, Skype, Sequoia and Index Fund FON: MobileCrunch Wonders Why
Posted by
Oliver | Discussion:
Google, Skype , Sequoia and Index Ventures have teamed up to invest $21.7 in FON, the upstart broadband sharing movement founded by serial entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky.
Based upon the premise that people can share and share alike with their broadband connections, thus creating a global free WiFi access zone. The idea is that WiFi subscribers can join FON and by
==============
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]
http://www.websciences.org/cftemplate/NAPS/indiv.cfm?ID=20060389
Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2006 Jan 26;[epub ahead of print].
Antioxidant vitamin C improves endothelial function in obstructive sleep apnea.
GREBE M, EISELE HJ, WEISSMANN N, SCHAEFER C, TILLMANNS H, SEEGER W, SCHULZ R.
Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Cardiology and Angiology, Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen, Germany
Rationale : Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is associated with oxidative stress, endothelial dysfunction and increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Objective : To test the hypothesis that endothelial dysfunction in patients with OSA is linked to oxidative stress. Methods : In the present study, we measured flow-mediated dilation (FMD) of the brachial artery by ultrasound in 10 otherwise healthy, untreated OSA patients and 10 age-and sex-matched controls without sleep-disordered breathing before and after i.v. injection of the antioxidant vitamin C. The investigator performing the FMD measurements was blinded to the status of the patients. Results : When compared to controls, baseline FMD was significantly reduced in the OSA patients. After i.v. injection of 0.5 g vitamin C vasoreactivity remained unchanged in the control subjects. In the OSA patients, ascorbate led to an increase in FMD to a level now comparable to that observed in the control group. Conclusion : The reduced endothelial-dependent vasodilation in untreated OSA patients acutely improves by the free radical scavenger vitamin C. These results are in favour of oxidative stress being responsible for the endothelial dysfunction in OSA. Antioxidant strategies should be explored for the treatment of OSA-related cardiovascular disease.
--------------------------------------------
http://www.websciences.org/cftemplate/NAPS/indiv.cfm?ID=20060360
Hum Psychopharmacol 2006 Jan 30;[epub ahead of print].
Mirtazapine naturalistic depression study (in Sweden)-MINDS(S): clinical efficacy and safety.
WALINDER J, PROCHAZKA J, ODEN A, SJODIN I, DAHL ML, AHLNER J, BENGTSSON F.
Department of Psychiatry, Sahlgrenska University Hospital/Molndal, Goteborg University, Sweden
OBJECTIVE: To study how implementation of a naturalistic trial design for mirtazapine treatment in major depressive disorder for six (up to 12) months could be used and evaluated by means of clinical efficacy and safety. METHOD: An open-labelled, prospective, multicenter, non-comparative trial was conducted during a 2-year period in patients with major depression according to DSM-IV treated in psychiatric departments and primary care in Sweden. Minimal inclusion and exclusion criteria were used in order to diminish the potential patient selection bias. Maximum flexibility of the dosage of mirtazapine was allowed, and clinical assessments included MADRS, CGI, vital signs and spontaneous reporting of adverse events. RESULTS: 192 patients were found eligible and enrolled in the study. A significant improvement in depressive symptoms according to MADRS and CGI was observed including particularly marked sleep improvement early in the treatment. Slight increases in body weight and BMI were observed. The investigational drug was well tolerated overall. CONCLUSION: The clinical efficacy and safety of mirtazapine found in this naturalistic setting is in line with previously reported data on mirtazapine in traditional controlled clinical trials. The results confirm that the naturalistic study design facilitated conduct of the trial. The authors suggest that this type of study design should also be applied to other antidepressant drugs that are frequently prescribed in the general population. Copyright (c) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
===================================
http://www.websciences.org/cftemplate/NAPS/indiv.cfm?ID=20060395
BACKGROUND:: Fatigue is a common symptom of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), but little is known about the specific nature of COPD-related fatigue and its impact on daily life. OBJECTIVES:: To (a) describe characteristics of fatigue in people with COPD and (b) test a theoretically and empirically supported model of the relationships among subjective fatigue, dyspnea, functional performance, anxious and depressed moods, and sleep quality in people with COPD. METHODS:: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted with 130 people with moderate to severe COPD. Measures included the following: a Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) for frequency, intensity, and distress of fatigue and dyspnea; Fatigue Assessment Instrument (FAI); Chronic Respiratory Disease Questionnaire (CRQ); Profile of Mood States (POMS); Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI); Functional Performance Inventory (FPI); and spirometry. Path analysis was used to examine the relationships among variables. RESULTS:: Participants reported moderate amounts of fatigue, which was described as situation-specific, had considerable consequences, and was responsive to rest and sleep. Dyspnea was slightly greater than fatigue, as measured by the NRSs (p <.001), and there was a strong relationship between fatigue and dyspnea (r =.74, p < .001). Dyspnea, depressed mood, and sleep quality accounted for 42% of the variance in subjective fatigue. Fatigue, dyspnea, airflow obstruction, and anxious mood accounted for 36% of the variance in functional performance. CONCLUSIONS:: Fatigue is an important problem that affects performance of daily activities in people with COPD. The relationships or interactions that exist among fatigue and other symptoms are complex.
//////////////
http://www.websciences.org/cftemplate/NAPS/indiv.cfm?ID=20060398
To investigate whether cardiac dysfunction or abnormal measurements on cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) are present in patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) and what factors are responsible for exercise limitation in these patients. We enrolled 20 patients with moderate or severe OSAS in the OSA group and 20 subjects without OSAS in the control group. All subjects underwent a sleep study and cardiac evaluation by radionuclide scanning and CPET. There was no difference in left ventricular ejection fraction (VEF) between the two groups, but the OSA group had a lower right VEF. Patients in the OSA group had a lower [Formula: see text] , [Formula: see text] and workpeak than the control group. The OSA group had a higher breathing reserve and a greater decrease in anaerobic threshold (AT) and oxygen pulse. In conclusion, patients with moderate to severe OSAS had abnormal CPET results. These abnormalities may be due to cardiac disease, pulmonary vascular disease, or possible lack of fitness.
-----------------------
http://www.websciences.org/cftemplate/NAPS/indiv.cfm?ID=20060407
Sleep Breath 2006 Feb 1;1-7[epub ahead of print].
Heart rate regularity analysis obtained from pulse oximetric recordings in the diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea.
ZAMARRON C, HORNERO R, DEL CAMPO F, ABASOLO D, ALVAREZ D.
Servicio de Neumologia, Hospital Clinico Universitario de Santiago de Compostela, C/ Choupana s/n, 15706, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, carlos.zamarron.sanz@sergas.es
Approximate entropy (ApEn) is a technique that can be used to quantify the irregularity or variability of time series. We prospectively evaluated the validity of ApEn of heart rate data obtained from pulse oximetric recordings as a diagnostic test for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in patients clinically suspected of suffering this disease. A sample of 187 referred outpatients (147 men and 40 women), with a mean age of 57.9+/-12.8 years and a body mass index of 29.5+/-5.5 kg/m(2), clinically suspected of having OSA were studied using nocturnal pulse oximetric recording performed simultaneously with complete polysomnography. A diagnosis of OSA was confirmed in 111 (59.3%). Patients with OSA presented significantly higher ApEn levels than those without OSA (1.334+/-0.189 vs 1.167+/-0.182). Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) was diagnosed for 42 patients. Among these patients, 22 (52.4%) were diagnosed with OSA. COPD patients with OSA showed significantly higher ApEn levels than COPD patients without OSA (1.337+/-0.193 vs 1.184+/-0.173; p=0.01). ApEn correlated significantly with apnea-hypopnea index (r=0.38; p=0.000). There was no significant correlation between ApEn and either age or body mass index. No significant changes were observed in ApEn throughout the night in OSA patients. Using receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, we obtained a diagnostic sensitivity of 71.2%, specificity of 78.9%, positive predictive value of 81.3%, and negative predictive value of 66% at a threshold of 1.272. We conclude that ApEn analysis of heart rate data obtained from pulse oximetric recordings could be a useful tool in the study of OSA.
FDA and orphan drugs - one of the other "monopoly makers"
The FDA-regulated industries have many non-patent tools at their disposal to achieve and/or ensure market exclusivity for their products. One of the least well known of the FDA "monopoly makers" is the Orphan Drug Act of 1983. Under the Act, the...[...continue reading...]
========================= cretins:
http://digitalphotography.weblogsinc.com/2005/07/29/steganography-with-flickr/
Steganography with Flickr
Posted Jul 29th 2005 3:36PM by Keith McDuffee
I've recently purchased a Pro account over on Flickr. Since I'm moving to a new place in a few weeks, paranoia has set in over possibly losing all of my digital photos due to a dropped computer, lost backup DVDs and CDs, or simply stolen equipment. What's great about Flickr is the sorting capabilities and, most importantly, unlimited storage. Surely they must have something in place to avoid taking too much advantage of that unlimitedness? Actually, it seems they don't.
Steganography is a way of embedding just about any kind of file or data within another "cover" file, though not noticably altering the cover file's content. Usually this embedded content is encrypted with a passphrase of some sort, only extractable via special programs. So should you embed a file within a JPEG image, for example, the casual observer would only see the image and perhaps only notice something odd due to the image's file size.
-------------
4. Hiding a file in image obviously changes the image, some steg app's just change the least significant bit of each byte in the data part of the image file. so any image has some random data hidden in it(which might not be usefull). This also means that you can only hide 1k in a image that is 8k in size(without compression etc).
Wont it be easier just to encrypt the data and upload it(may add a image header to it, so that the site doesnt complain). Obviously it wont look like an image but noone will be able to get to the data.
Just my 5c ZAR (excl vat)
Posted at
11:37AM on Aug 21st 2005 by Gert Burger
------
---------------------
6. As steganography is very difficult to detect, I would suspect that there is not a single image hosting site that looks for it.
Gert Berger is somewhat correct when he's talking about using the LSB, but several steg programs out there will alter more than one LSB, all while keeping a histogram of the image exactly the same and only filling around 30-40% of the container file -- VERY tough to detect (if not impossible).
Niels Provos wrote stegdetect which determines if an image has something embedded in it from certain tools, but that I'm aware of, no one has written anything that detects general steganography.
You said that you'd rather see the service not abused like this. What's wrong with it? That's almost like saying you'd rather not see email abused by sending encrypted emails. Images are images, and some may happen to contain other info, but as long as it's an image, why would Flickr care?
Posted at
12:37PM on Aug 21st 2005 by Dave
--------------
13. So basically you're showing us how to use a photo storage service to store private data. I think this is immoral and is probably against the terms of service.
Flikr could probably detect the changes anyway. When you do stego on Jpegs you do it by altering the coefficients on the waveforms. The problem is these coefficients usually conform to a gaussian distribution and by packing so much data in to the jpeg you're going to screw up that distribution.
To hide truly undetectable data in there is going to be difficult and the channel capacity wont be all too great. It's a clever idea but I'm against it. If you want storage, buy a web-hosting package and FTP it up to it there.
Posted at
2:36PM on Aug 21st 2005 by Andrew
-----------------
19. Over at Fotopic.net we've been doing photo sharing for a few years longer than Flickr, and had this problem for a while. We ended up writing some filters which score suspicious-looking jpeg files (things like image dimensions vs filesize for one).
It wasn't uncommon for us to get a 200x200 jpeg which was about 10M in size, and find RAR headers in it. Given the volume of photos submitted it's a bit hard to scan everything but we score it and it works 99% of the time.
Of course, there's the pillocks who'll upload a photo called "winxp-sp2-cr4ck3d.r01.jpg", and oddly enough they're pretty easy to spot ;)
Posted at
4:40PM on Aug 21st 2005 by
Joel Rowbottom 0 sta
Posted Feb 1st 2006 5:45PM by Ajit Anthony
Filed under: Production, Cameras, Gear, The Shoot, Intermediate, Pro
A must read for you Intermediate and Pro users. We have mentioned the RED camera before (
here &
here). Mike Curtis has an
exclusive interview with the man behind the RED camera, Jim Jannard (also the founder of Oakley Sunglasses.) What Jannard is promising with this camera is really hard to believe. The specs are simply too good to be true. No digital camera has either delivered or even promised such power or such versatility. They plan to not only market it to big budget productions but also to the indie. You add what you want, why was no one else providing this? Almost like a computer. This simply sounds too good to be true. Among all the things mentioned, the talk about lenses got me the most excited. Here is what Jannard has to say about lenses:
"We see a hole in the market for lenses. It is true that Cooke, Zeiss and others make great lenses for 35mm film cameras. Our camera will accommodate them. But there needs to be a less expensive alternative. If we hope to attract customers other than the highest budget professional, our camera needs to be priced right and there needs to be lenses available that won't break the bank. We are trying to anticipate as many angles as possible. I'm going to be really depressed if we only sell 1000 cameras. So we need to provide complete solutions to include as many users as possible."
Wow, wow, wow. Mike does a great job of being persistent. More details on the camera will be released at NAB which is turning out to be the most exciting EVER (add Simpson Comic book guy accent there).
Well, huh. I guess Playboy picked the right guy to design its new line of luxury "five time zone" watches. Jacob Arabo of JACOB and Co. gushed about being asked to design the watches, describing the Playboy "spirit" as "so much a part of the fabric of our world society" and that it "crosses all borders, demographics, and psychographics." I would say that's laying it on just a little thick, but whatever, the watches look cool. The three styles of watches will be available through JACOB and Co. and through Playboy.
Warning: The videos on the site are on the edge of being Not Safe For Work but are, without a doubt, gross.
below each of the following titles. The 
Icon will bring you back to this menu.
