ACTA will kill online privacy and civil rights (Video)

Now that the SOPA fever has died down.. Let me remind everyone that there is another more dire bill coming up in the European Union and this is the one to watch. This bill will not only destroy the web, but also the individual, you and me. It is called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The supposed reason behind ACTA is similar to SOPA, to protect intellectual property. It was first drafted in 2008 and has gained many signatures including from Singapore on 1 October 2011.

Now this is what ACTA does:
1) forces Internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as Singnet and Starhub to scan and track every single data packet to and from every internet user.
2) any counterfeiting of copyrighted materials detected will allow the ISPs to deny internet service to the user
3) furthermore, the ISP is required to inform the publisher of said copyrighted material, who will then decide if the user will be charged in court

You may think you're safe but wait.. ACTA gives permission to all ISPs to monitor every single user. Everyone will be under constant surveillance. There is no more privacy, every single website you visit, facebook posts, tweet, youtube video, etc etc, will be under scrutiny. ACTA grants so much power that even if you were to buy a single MP3 song online and transfer over email or MSN to a friend, BOTH you and your friend will be prosecuted.

Some examples that will get you prosecuted under ACTA:
1) Sharing copyrighted material online, through MSN, Skype, Dropbox, etc.
2) Uploading copyrighted music, videos or homemade videos with copyrighted music on video sites like YouTube, Facebook video, etc
3) Quoting a line out of a copyrighted song, novel, newspaper article, etc. 

NO ONE IS SAFE 

If you had thought SOPA is bad, ACTA is worse. SOPA only has the power to shut down websites that are suspected of copyright infringements. ACTA attacks websites AS WELL AS goes straight to the individual, removes privacy and freedom of speech by constant surveillance. Like SOPA, ACTA also allows censorship of audio, video and text. Governments that signed ACTA can leverage its power to censor anything it desires such as politics. This results in the individual losing their civil rights. Any offenders can be prosecuted. What this means that in future elections such as the General Elections 2016, government critical tweets, facebook and blog posts can be censored.

This is just a very quick summary of what ACTA is about, there are many more underlying regulations that will be enforced. It also does not help that further discussions on the bill are kept secret. Bills such as SOPA and ACTA are favourable to governments since it can be used as a weapon. SOPA may have been denied after last week but ACTA has gained momentum and quietly.. As of now, countries such as Australia, Canada, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and the United States have already signed the bill. The bill will be negotiated after 31 March 2013 by the European Union. If the bill should pass, get ready to be very afraid.

PS: We can't do anything since Singapore has already signed it. We just have to wait till next year to find out the future of our online privacy and civil rights. In the meantime, all we can do is keep each other informed.

iPhone 4S Siri and Samsung Galaxy S2 Voice Talk.. (Video)

Just some thoughts on the new iPhone 4S Siri. While many people are won over by the new iPhone 4S personal virtual assistant, it should be noted that there have been similar apps and implementations on Android phones at least a year earlier. Voice recognition technology is nothing new but it is now set to gain huge momentum with Apple joining the race and popularising it.


With smart phones and PDAs (personal digital assistants) merging, people have been using their phones to perform countless tasks. It soon made sense that the phone is sort of like a personal assistant to you. However, unlike a real assistant, you can't just talk to a phone and tell it what to do, at least until the last couple of years. Apple has introduced Siri on the iPhone 4S and Samsung has made Voice Talk on the Samsung Galaxy S2, both of which can take your commands and perform tasks for you. Meanwhile, Google has Voice Actions for its Android OS.

Here's the introduction video on Siri for iPhone 4S by Apple.

Clearly Siri is an advanced voice recognition tool implemented by Apple. Although Apple did not came out with the technology (they bought the Siri company back in April 2010), they certainly improved it drastically and integrated it well with the iPhone, allowing people to perform tasks such as web searching, sms-ing, writing notes, emails and more on the phone just by speaking to it.

While Siri is only available for the iPhone 4S (a key feature for drawing more sales), there have been similar apps like Vlingo on Android for years. Google Android has also introduced Voice Actions last year, where you can tell the phone to call, send sms, do map navigation, web search and more. But one thing that Voice Actions disappoints is that it does not "talk back" to the user, making it less than pleasant to use. Most people would like a human touch like vocal response, after all, you would like an assistant to at least reply when you give an instruction.

However, mobile phone companies like Samsung has also experimented with the idea of a talking personal virtual assistant by having it integrated into their latest phone, the Samsung Galaxy S2 with Voice Talk, which by the way came out four months ahead of iPhone 4S, and sparking a growing interest in voice recognition technology.

I have embedded 3 demo videos of the Voice Talk in action.

Voice Talk on Samsung Galaxy S2 - go to 1:03 for demo.



Another demo of Voice Talk on the Samsung Galaxy S2


A more comprehensive demo of Voice Talk



Based on what we have seen so far, Samsung's Voice Talk can answer your questions and perform tasks for you and talk back to you. One thing that sets it apart from Apple's Siri is that it can be voice activated by saying "Hi Galaxy", whereas you have to long press the home button on the iPhone 4S to activate Siri. There is also an option to turn on "Driving Mode" where the user can control the phone solely by speech, without ever having to touch it. Very impressive. Siri may lack such functions, however, Apple takes it a step further by actually having artificial intelligence. Siri has the ability to understand what you are actually saying and come up with various yet appropriate responses. There is no more need to memorise specific words or commands for the program to understand.

Of course, both implementations are not 100% perfect and they still fumble when they cannot recognise the voice due to accents, languages or the environment. However, given that voice recognition is the direction we are heading, it wouldn't be long before these hurdles will be overcome. There have been lots of research and developments done on voice recognition and the results are unimaginable, but they are still out of reach of the consumers.

It is welcoming to see companies like Google, Apple, Samsung, Vlingo and even Microsoft pushing such technology to the consumers. While Apple now has the upperhand with an advanced Siri, Google is reportedly throwing their own version in Android Ice Cream Sandwich, which will debut on 19 October 2011 (tomorrow!). How will the future of "talking to electronics" turn out?


One thing for sure, our phones will be able to make us laugh..


Funny Siri Answers 1


Funny Siri Answers 2

New Trailer: The Avengers

 

 Title: The Avengers

Date Released: 1st May 2012 (Singapore)

Synopsis: When an unexpected enemy emerges that threatens global safety and security, Nick Fury, Director of the international peacekeeping agency known as SHIELD, finds himself in need of a team to pull the world back from the brink of disaster. Spanning the globe, a daring recruitment effort begins.

"Read more" for the trailer and a trailer analysis clip from IGN to find out who the enemy is!

The Avengers Trailer

The Avengers Trailer Analysis

Note: The main enemy is Loki (Thor's brother). So looks like the bulk of the movie will be about Thor confronting his brother, yet again. How did he survive the fall in the latest Thor movie and how did they come back to Earth after having their portal destroyed is beyond me. I did not read the comics so I have no idea. But no matter, I believe this is going to be an explosive movie. All the previous Marvel movies have led up to this Marvel superstars show.

spiderman 3 trailer

spiderman theme song

Spider-Man was the first animated adaptation of the Spider-Man comic book series, created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko (first seen in Amazing Fantasy #15, August 1962). Season 1 contained mostly stories involving classic Spider-Man villains from the comic book series, who, when caught in Spider-Man’s web, were left for the Police to find, along with a note signed, “Courtesy of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.” Stan Lee, who created the character, served as story consultant for the first season of the show.

The Spider-Man theme song has been so popular over the years, that many bands have covered it, re-arranged it, and adapted the lyrics. You can find covers from Aerosmith to the Ramones, and you’ll even find a Spider-Pig song within The Simpsons Movie from 2007.

If you’re going to talk about the Spider-Man cartoon from 1967-1970, then you have to mention how low-budget it was. ABC, through producer Steve Krantz, contracted the animation out to Grantray-Lawrence. The series relied upon re-used stock animation from one episode to the next. So, you would see the same scene of Spider-Man swinging across the New York City skyline several times, across several episodes. After the first season, Grantray-Lawrence went bankrupt. The second and third seasons were produced at a dramatically reduced budget by Krantz Films under Ralph Bakshi. The second and third seasons of Spider-man have a really different look and feel than the brighter, more optimistic first season of the show. Sometimes, it seemed the theme didn’t match the later episodes. Also, the storyline went beyond the normal, day-to-day activity of Peter Parker working at the Daily Bugle as a teenage freelance photographer with his boss, the demanding J. Jonah Jameson. We still see the theme as the strongest part of the series, which enabled it to keep going for 3 years, even though it was on a shoestring budget.

Originally Aired on TV: September 9, 1967

Theme Song Written By: Music by Bob Harris
Lyrics by Paul Francis Webster

Lyrics

Spider-man, Spider-man,
Does whatever a spider can
Spins a web, any size,
Catches thieves just like flies
Look Out!
Here comes the Spider-man.

Is he strong?
Listen bud,
He’s got radioactive blood.
Can he swing from a thread
Take a look overhead
Hey, there
There goes the Spider-man.

In the chill of night
At the scene of a crime
Like a streak of light
He arrives just in time.

Spider-man, Spider-man
Friendly neighborhood Spider-man
Wealth and fame
He’s ingnored
Action is his reward.

To him, life is a great big bang up
Whenever there’s a hang up
You’ll find the Spider-man.

source:http://www.toonbarn.com/spider-man/greatest-tv-cartoon-theme-songs-8-spider-man/

spiderman the game cheats

Cheats for Spider-Man 3 Collectors Edition PS3


"Spider-Man 3" is the third installment of the "Spider-Man" series produced by Treyarch, which began life on the PlayStation 2. The third installment, the series debut on the PlayStation 3, sees Spider-Man, aka Peter Parker, return to the streets of New York to do battle against villains such as Venom and the Green Goblin. "Spider-Man 3 Collectors Edition" for PS3 features a number of extras, including interviews with the developers and "making of" features. Upon release, the game was considered tough by many gamers, according to IGN, but the developers programmed a number of cheats and rewards as an incentive to the players' perseverance.

Unlock the Green Goblin for "Arena Mode"

In order to unlock Spider-Man's archenemy the Green Goblin in "Spider-Man 3" you must defeat him in your first encounter within the single player campaign. When he is unlocked, you will gain access to his hover-board system, which is controllable by use of the Sixaxis game-pad, allowing you to zoom around the New York skyline without having to propel yourself from building to building, as Spider-Man does.
Spider-Man 3 Cheat Codes

A number of cheat codes can be entered during gameplay in "Spider Man 3: Collectors Edition" to access new characters and even gain status enhancements. In order to unlock the character venom, enter the campaign and press "X," "Circle," "X," "Circle," "Down," "Up" and "Up." You will now be able to use Venom during the single-player portion of the game. To become invincible, pause the game and press "X," "X," "X," "Circle," "Circle," "Circle," "R1," "L1," "Up," "Up" and "Down." If you have entered the code correctly you will hear a beep and you will then become invincible. Unlock everything in the game by again pausing during gameplay and then entering the following: "R1," "X," "R1," "X," "Circle," "Circle" and "Up." When you hear a beep, all the secrets in the game will be at your disposal.
Play as Peter Parker

Peter Parker can be unlocked in "Spider Man 3: Collectors Edition" for the PS3 as an alternative skin to Spider-Man's regular appearance. To unlock him, you must undertake a mission at The Daily Bugle. Talk to Robbie in the office, and when he assigns you a mission, exit and then re-enter the building. The waypoint will now show up from within the building. If you then wait inside the building you will get a "Mission Failed" message, and notification that Eddie has been assigned to the mission. Now you will be granted two options: "Retry" or "Do something else." Select "Do something else," and you should appear on top of the Daily Bugle building as Peter Parker. Walk over to the race on top of the building, but when "Press X to start the mission" appears, you can press "X" which will instead allow Peter Parker to punch. Press "X" continuously while simultaneously moving forward, until Peter Parker walks off the side of the building. You now take the role of Peter Parker while negotiating the city.
Perform Easy Kills

To perform easy kills in "Spider Man 3: Collectors Edition," press "Circle" when an enemy is running away, and you will stun him. To defeat lower-level enemies -- such as Apocalypse Gang members, Candy girls and Dr. Connor's Lizard Creations -- in one hit, first jump into the air and pull the enemy toward you. Press "Circle" very quickly when the enemy is close and then press "Triangle" repeatedly; and you will slam the enemy into the ground.
Unlock Arena Mode

"Arena Mode" in "Spider Man 3: Collector's Edition" allows you to pit your character against another story character in a versus match in a select few of the game's environments. To access "Arena Mode," complete the single-player campaign and then access the mode under "Extras."


Read more: Cheats for Spider-Man 3 Collectors Edition PS3 | eHow.co.uk http://www.ehow.co.uk/info_8316824_cheats-3-collectors-edition-ps3.html#ixzz1qHxNTljj

New Movie Trailer: Red Tails

If you know who George Lucas is, you'd want to watch this movie. If you haven't, you'd want to watch too when you realise that he's the mastermind behind LucasFilm's very successful Star Wars series. We pretty much have not heard much from him recently until now. He is back to produce Red Tails, a World War 2 movie about African American pilots battling their enemies and race discrimination back home. This movie is about dogfighting and features some really impressive visual effects. Feel excited now? "Read More" to view the trailer.



Release Date: Estimated 19 January 2012 (Singapore)

Note: This being a George Lucas' LucasFilm production, the visual effects job naturally went to Industrial Lights and Magic, the best visual effects studio in the world. And I can say, based off the trailer, the visual effects are just fantastic.

Red Tails Trailer:




Source: YouTube