Guilherme da Rosa

"Danish copyfighter Henrik Anderson has a dilemma. Although the laws in his country allow him to copy DVDs for his own personal use, they forbid him to remove the DRM in order to do so. Wanting to have this legal contradiction dealt with by his government, he confessed to anti-piracy group Antipiratgruppen that he had illegally broken the DRM on a hundred movies and TV shows. The full background to the case can be found here [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"By “power junkie”, Michael isn’t referring to my constant attempts to wrest control of the Gadget Lab from its esteemed editor (damn your physical fitness and level-headed approach, Tweney — I’ll get you one day). Instead, Michael is talking about my weakness for cleverly designed wall-warts, of which his is one. After some correspondence between us, Michael has at last launched his power outlet, the TruePower, which combines a couple of standard 100V-240V sockets with a pair of USB ports [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"Smartphones or GPS navigators that can be rolled up and stuffed into the backpocket of your Diesel jeans are inching closer to reality. Advancements in display technology have created flexible displays that could be available commercially in about two years. Now, a new breakthrough suggests another critical component for most gadgets–antennas–are set to get more twisty than a pretzel. Using a new combination of alloys, researchers have created shape-shifting antennas that could be embedded into materials such as textiles, bandages and bendable displays to bring in a new generation of flexible devices [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"As the year draws to an end, all the large search engines have now published their year-end roundups of the most popular search queries on their sites. On almost every service, these include Michael Jackson, Twitter, Lady Gaga and terms related to Twilight. Google also just released its annual Zeitgeist survey, which features lists of the fastest rising search terms on Google's properties worldwide. Among the top queries related to technology and the Web, Facebook (#2) leads the charge ahead of Twitter (#4) and Windows 7 (#8) in the global survey. In the US, Twitter was the fastest rising search term of 2009, followed by Michael Jackson, Facebook, Hulu and hi5 [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"In addition to being an open platform that facilitates device innovation, Android offers choice and progress when it comes to the marketplace where consumers discover and download applications. While iTunes and The Official App Store are the only places consumers can download apps for their iPhone, Android’s open platform allows merchants like MobiHand and HanDango to set up storefronts, ultimately providing more purchasing options for consumers. Google’s focus on improving its the user experience in its own Android market will also continue to boost revenues for app developers. For example, when the recent 1.6 OS (Cupcake) upgrade provided a much needed facelift for the market, we saw an immediate 18 percent lift in sales for our paid Caller ID application [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Because you’re not going anywhere for a while. Wired has a great article up right now that reminds me of Wired magazine content in their glory days in the early 2000s. The object of the piece is to examine the feasibility of disappearing completely in the digital age. They gave writer Evan Ratcliff a month’s head start to plan his means of vanishing, then set the entire internet on him once he’d executed his plan [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"What can I say about Windows Update? It makes me feel warm and fuzzy to knowing that Bill Gates has personally been plucking away on his computer just for me. Actually I'm thinking what hole in the dam of security flaws are they trying to plug this time around? [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"Have you read our coverage of AMD's new Radeon HD 5870 graphics card? If you have you'll already be marvelling at the sheer, giddy silliness of the frame rates it's capable of, not to mention basking in the glory of nearly three teraflops of raw processing power. It's simply the sexiest slice of silicon since a sliver of Megatron's mainboard accidentally slipped down Megan Fox's frilly bits. Of course, the 5870 is also the very first graphics card to support DirectX 11 [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"Google’s new playable music search feature was just a hint at the future of Google’s musical ambitions, if its new concept demonstration video of next year’s Chrome OS netbooks — featuring an embedded Lala music playback app — is any indication [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"Adding Twitter and Facebook to game consoles is a good idea, but both Sony and Microsoft are missing the point. These social networks are tools that can be used for all kinds of things. Their usefulness to gamers doesn’t spawn from the ability to learn in real time that your best friend’s wife is psyched to see New Moon. Social networking on game consoles must make it easier to find and connect friends to game with. And the way that they’re implemented now on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, they aren’t coming close to doing that [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"BitTorrent is extremely useful for lots of downloading and file-sharing, but if a less tech-inclined friend of yours doesn't understand BitTorrent or you can't install a BitTorrent client, new web site httpTorrents lets you download files of popular torrents directly via HTTP [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"In the gradual development of car technologies, the vision of a self-driving 'autonomous' vehicle has always fascinated petrolheads and car designers alike. The latest tech from Bosch – a Night Vision Plus viewer in your dash that lets you (or your car, rather) see pedestrians at night – is perhaps the latest example of these developments [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

Awesome, easier to target lasers - Mo Kargas

"Still listen to the radio? No, neither do we. We made a playlist of the hits of the 70s, 80s and 90s and it’s exactly the same as every commercial FM station, minus the ads. And we don’t even listen to that. If you live in Britain, though, you get BBC radio, and you may be interested in Logitech’s lovely looking, minimal USB Radio Tuner. The dongle contains an AM and FM receiver and an FM antenna (an external antenna is needed for AM, and an adapter is available to hook it up to a proper FM aerial) and the whole lot is powered from the USB bus [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"Wow. Nice work, Dell. Way to drag the Mini 3 launch out for what feels like an eternity. First, the early ‘09 rumors (here and here). Then, the August 2009 leak. Next, China Mobile unofficially outed the smartie. And now, finally, an official confirmation straight from the horse’s Dell’s mouth. Dude China / Brazil, you’re gettin a Dell! [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"Blockbuster, observing the popularity of services like RedBox (a DVD rental kiosk), has decided they’re going to skip a step and start offering movie rentals that come on an SD card. The new kiosks would load a DRMed movie onto your own SD card, and the content will expire after X viewings or days. They’re hoping that the better quality of the movies (vs. streaming ones or regular DVD) will bring users back. You might have picked a format that’s actually supported by media devices, guys [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"Last month, we told you about Google's Flu Trends' expansion to 20 countries around the world. The program monitors mentions of flu symptoms to predict - and hopefulyl help prevent - flu outbreaks. Today, Google has announced a new feature of Maps that will allow users to find flu vaccines near them. In partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the American Lung Associaltion, and Flu.gov, Google Maps is now helping users search for seasonal flu vaccination locations, H1N1 flu shots, or both together [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"The U.S. has agreed to pay $3 million to a former government worker who accused officials with the CIA and State Department of spying on him with a bugged coffee table. Rather than comply with a court order to provide lawyers in the case with what the U.S. government says is classified information, the government has agreed to settle to end the 15-year-old suit [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"(CBS) A series of power outages affecting millions of people in Brazil in 2005 and 2007 were the result of cyber attacks, "60 Minutes" has learned. The two-day event in Espirito Santo State affecting more than three million people in 2007 and another, smaller event in three cities north of Rio de Janeiro in January 2005 were perpetrated by hackers manipulating control systems [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"We chose iFixit author Karasumachitose’s teardown of the Sony PlayStation 3 as the winner of “Best Overall Teardown.” We enjoyed this one because it included a clear photos, well-written instructions and a complete list of tools necessary to guide a person through tearing down a PS3. A 37-step process, it was no easy feat. Way to go! (Coincidentally but fittingly, Karasumachitose wins the PS3 Slim — a skinnier and better PS3 — for a prize [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"Just an interesting visualization of the broadband situation out there. Statistics get a bad rap, probably because they’re always in spreadsheet form when they should be in an infographic [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"Those of us who make a living by making things happen (i.e. who hustle) know that it is a people game. All of the tools in the world won't beat the chemistry and aligned motivation that come from creative win/win deal-making. The tools are like a hammer for a carpenter. You have to have them, but carpenters are not defined by their tools. However, something substantively different is happening online at the tool level, thanks to social media [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"Flixster, a social networking site for movie fans, is doing pretty well for itself in the mobile space. Name any smartphone platform, and there’s a good chance that the Flixster app has spent some time on it’s top download charts. iPhone? Yep. BlackBerry? Yep. Android and Palm webOS? Double yeps [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"The Far North Living Lab was started by the Northern Research Institute (Norut) and aims to create a platform for digital creativity. Earlier this year the lab kicked off with a spectacular experiment in which they used the Tribler BitTorrent client to stream a 2K resolution film onto the big screen [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"Windows 7 is a big improvement over Vista, and a pretty convenient OS in general—but it's by no means perfect. These 10 downloads improve Windows 7's looks, functions, and make it easier, safer, and more convenient to upgrade to [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"Portable applications are quite handy; it's great being able to take a piece of software you use at home with you anywhere you go, settings and all. So what could be better? A whole suite of portable apps, packaged neatly together [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

I guess Google Pack of apps is different? They dont have a portable version>? - TrafficBug

While I was in college, I used portable apps on my thumb drive often, but now I use them sync'd to my Dropbox (which I can access via my thumbdrive). It's hugely useful having applications not being anchored to a single PC. - Phillip Loughney

"One tiny detail that went largely unnoticed about the “nook”, the slick new e-book reader that Barnes and Noble just released: the nook’s operating system is based on Google’s Android OS. Hmmm… Why would B&N develop the nook based on Android? Well, Android is a sick platform for developers, and they absolutely love building on it. So why not open it up and let others develop for the nook? According a person close to the situation, that is in the plans for the nook, and it will soon be able to run apps [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"Can't argue with a wig like that, right? Video after the break." - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"Windows only: Free portable application FolderSize quickly analyzes the contents of any hard drive or specific folder on your computer to help you hunt down your hard drive hogs and free up space [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet

"Computerworld - Mozilla has unblocked one of the two Microsoft-made add-ons that put Firefox users at risk from attack and will probably unblock the second in the next 48 hours, the company's head of engineering said today [...]" - Guilherme da Rosa from Bookmarklet