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Intellectual Property I: Copyright

2010 - 01.26

Tags: accessibility, creativity, intellectual property
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments Off

Note: This is from my original blog, written December 2008. This is US-centric. I’ve decided to revive some of them.

Alright, I’m a little pissy about intellectual property. Digital content is ridiculously easy to share. For people growing up with digital content, there’s lots of temptation to use readily available materials to be creative (animated music videos come to mind). Uh, yeah. That’s illegal.

So, I’m going to do a nice series on the topic. I expect something in the format of:

Copyright: protections for creative endeavors.
Trademarks: protecting identifiers (slogans, logos, and colors).
Patents: protects inventions and discoveries.
Fair use: staying out of trouble
Alternatives: public domain and creative commons.

Copyright protects artistic work including literary, dramatic/choreographed, musical, pictorial/graphic/sculptural, film/audiovisual, sound recordings, and architectural. It should be stated that copyright does not protect ideas, slogans, non-tangible works (like not recording a dance routine), and works that solely use public content (units of measurement, for example).

In the U.S., copyright is granted to every applicable thing created, but the copyright will need to be registered for legal considerations. Copyright extends 90 years from creation or 120 years from publication (whichever’s shorter). In terms of the owner of the copyright, that’s usually the creator(s). If you were to buy a painting, the artist probably did not also sell the copyrights to it.

So, what does a copyright protect? These are the exclusive rights that are granted to the copyright holder:

To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords.
To prepare derivative works based upon the work.
To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending.
To publicly perform the work, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works.
To publicly display the work, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work.

Yep. You cannot legally copy and distribute works (no P2P downloads), create works based on a work (like, oh, fanfiction), or have it readily available to the public (damn, no projecting WALL•E onto buildings). These exclusive rights are not dependent on who makes money, so that “no money = okay” excuse can get someone into trouble.

Alright then, how can there be so much blatant use of copyrighted materials? One option is that someone wrote the copyright holder and was granted permission (more effective for a lone musician than RCA).

But, in addition to the rights there’s also a list of limitations in copyright. These include: fair use, reproduction by archives and libraries, and creation of an accessible copy for a person with a disability that would not be able to access the material.

Spring Work

2010 - 01.26

Tags: classes, Research, Work
Posted in Class, Miscellaneous, Work | Comments Off

So, this semester I’m going to have quite a workload. All my courses have a high reading amount. Two require homework and/or a programming assignment each week.

In addition, I will be grading the first programming course, tutoring a foreign visually impaired student, and doing side research for the Director of Mentoring & Retention. I’m not even sure my workstudy is for this semester, but I’m guessing the Director wants to spend every dime (thereby making sure I get the full employment pay).

In most semesters, I have done side projects which dabble into my interest. Yet, I’m not sure I will have the time this time. So, I have decided that I will continue watching how this semester goes and then decide whether I have the time.

If it does work out, I think I would like to do some cell phone programming (probably Android, but maybe the iPhone‘s Objective C). I don’t know what I would want to program though. I would like to involve hardware, like the GPS or accelerometer. I think the best tools are tangible or ubiquitous.

Toys I would like to play with

2009 - 11.07

Tags: design, develop, learn, programming, tangible, toy
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments Off

Figured I’d talk about some relatively new technology that I would love to get my hands on. So, in alphabetical order:

BUG Modules

BUG modules with BUG base

These little modular hardware components are designed with rapid prototyping in mind. So, what’s so great about them?

Various modules and planned modules:
- Audio output
- Motion detection
- Zigbee
- Touchscreen
- GPS
Java programmed. Java is a simple object-oriented language with large functionality, cross-platform performance, and a safety net to prevent new programmers from doing stupid things (like, wipe one’s harddrive as one can do with C/C++). It also prevents having to write each component in it’s own language
There’s braille on the modules. While not very useful for most people, it is still a nice thing to do.
Modules are just inserted into slots; no having to argue with wires and solder. Like electronic legos, I suppose.
Education discount.

So, why don’t I already have these?

Price. These things are $50-130 US a piece with the base module at a whopping $449. While I am paying for the convenience of prototyping, that’s still a lot of money considering that I (and I assume many people) would like several modules to create anything I want.
Sharability. I have to expect other people to shell out the money if I want to share my applications. While Bug Labs promotes users to share code on it’s site, I still would like to actually see others use it.

littleBits

littleBits intro from ayah bdeir on Vimeo.

littleBits are a series of prebuilt circuitboards with components that magnetically snap together. Prevents the need to solder between boards to make connections and looks really child-friendly. Why do I want them?

Simple design. I don’t know a lot about hardware (despite my research interests being mostly in hardware), and these seem like a safe way for me to get my feet wet.
Outreach. These look like they would be a lot of fun for kids. While I know robots are interesting to many people, when I was little robots certainly weren’t for me (they didn’t come across as unusual or artistic enough for my tastes). These things look like they’d be more successful with atypical kids and super-hardware focused ones.

And why don’t I have them?

Preorder without a set date. I don’t really have the time or money to tie up with a product that I don’t know when I will get it.
Preorder without a set dollar amount. I don’t want to order something without knowing how much it will cost.

Nabaztag

Nabaztag showing colored LEDs and it's ears moving.

Created by French company Violet, Nabaztag is among the list of smart objects. This little electronic rabbit does reminders, does RSS updates, reads one version of RFID tags, and can send/receive messages from various sources. What’s the good:

It’s a rabbit. I like rabbits.
RFID tagging of objects and linking these to digital events sounds convenient to me.
Programmable. It’s nice to have a pretty toy that I can modify.
Not having to look at my email all the time. Having a device on the other side of a room tell me I have mail sounds a lot nicer than always having to be connected.
It does ear tai chi.
Reads RSS, sets alarms, checks email, can receive texts. Generally, it just does lots of communication

What’s the bad?

The services are reliant on a database controlled by the company owner. I feel uncomfortable having data on another server and not knowing that I can be charged for services in the future.
Violet went bankrupt. It was then bought by Mindscape (this past October actually). So, I don’t know what will become of the Nabaztag line.

Zii EGG

ZiiLABS, a subsidiary of Creative Technology, has been pushing the creation of it’s Zii processor, a stemcell-like multimedia-focused chip. Out of this is Zii EGG, a developer tool. What makes it interesting:

10 point multitouch screen
1080p output image
32 gigs of memory
WiFi and Bluetooth wireless standards
HD camera
Accelerometer and GPS
Text-to-Speech engine

And the not so great:

Android isn’t fully operational so have to rely on ZiiLABS’ Plaszma SDK.
Cell phone chip?! Seriously, this looks like a phone.
$400 price tag. Yeah, I get that it’s intended for companies, but there’s a nice individual and educational marketability.

Simple things to do for accessibility

2009 - 10.24

Tags: accessibility, design, web
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments Off

It’s depressing to me how inaccessible websites can be for people with disabilities. So, I’m putting together a simple list of things to do to improve web accessibilities:

Include the alternative text tags in images. For users relying on a screen reader, it’s nice to know if an image is relevant and what it is. In HTML it’s as simple as adding a short line like so:<img src="image.gif" alt="Dalmatian">
Add subtitles to YouTube videos. Not only do hearing impaired viewers benefit, but also individuals that have difficulty with the included spoken language.
Design with the assumption the user will want to change the screen size. Enlarged text helps farsighted users, while being designed to also fit on small screens helps mobile phone accessors.
Define terms. Don’t assume that the reader knows what you know; their initial visit may be to learn something or be entertained (it isn’t very entertaining to not know what people mean). As the terms I use are usually abbreviations or acronyms I also use some uncommon HTML tags:<abbr title="abbreviation">ABBR</abbr> tags are great for abbreviation.
Alternatively, the acronym tag: <acronym title="National Science Foundation">NSF</acronym> (which I admit I don’t use as often as I should.)
Make sure there’s a way back to the homepage from every page. It’s terrible to get lost.
Avoid flash media. While great for embedding, flash isn’t necessarily accessible to everyone. (Consider screen reader, mobile phone and other non-traditional users.)

Email Rules for use with Professors

2009 - 10.20

Tags: email, grad school, prof, writing
Posted in Graduate school, Miscellaneous | Comments Off

Professors can, and many do, get hundreds of emails a day. For research professors in particular, answering emails can be wasting valuable grant proposal, paper writing, and lecture planning time.

So, they hit “delete.” A lot.

When you want to talk to them, that becomes a big problem. So, what to do?

Make the Subject of your email specific. Even if you’re taking their class, they may have no idea who you are or what you could want.
- “CS 101: homework question.”
- “Request for meeting.”
Keep it short. No one cares to hear your life story. At most, half a page. In most cases, a couple sentences to a paragraph is all that’s necessary.
Avoid anything that resembles a form letter. If you can address it to another prof, then there’s a problem.

For the case of professors you don’t know (like ones that you’re interested in doing research with for grad school), the following additional rules apply:

Talk about them. This goes in hand with not writing form letters. Reference a paper or two to prove that you actually know who they are.
Include a brief introduction to who you are. I recommend doing this after the talking about them. Unless you are super famous, they have absolutely no idea what you want.
Include a “thank you.” They bothered to read your letter rather than delete it. Show some gratitude.

As painful as it might be, you may need to wait a couple days to a few weeks for a response. If you’re writing to a professor while in their class, go to their office hours if that happens before they respond or try contacting the TA. In the case of an unfamiliar professor, just keep waiting. No one likes to come back from a conference to multiple copies of the same message.

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