Sep 3
Mythbusters RFID episode banned
Fresh from their success at Nvision, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman – better known as the Mythbusters – have found themselves in the middle of a global conspiracy conducted by major credit-card corporations. At least, if Adam’s comments at a recent conference are true.
According to CNet, Savage was asked by an audience member at an un-named conference why the team – which host a show aimed at testing common myths in an often explosive manner – had never tested the well-publicised vulnerabilities of RFID chips, including the well-known (and well-cracked) MiFare Classic.
In a video of the conference, Savage details a call which took place between Tory Belleci – a member of the show’s B-team – and Texas Instruments as part of the research carried out ahead of a planned RFID-busting episode. Sadly, Belleci got more than he bargained for: as well as Texas Instruments, the call featured the chief legal councils for American Express, Visa, Discover, and “everyone else” which left the team feeling “way, way out-gunned.”
In a fit of foot-stomping reminiscent of the recent court-ordered ban on a talk regarding the vulnerabilities in the MiFare Classic-based CharlieCard transport payment system, the Discovery Channel – which owns the show – were told in no uncertain terms that “they were not going to air this episode talking about how hackable this stuff was, and Discovery backed way down, being a large corporation that depends on the revenue of the advertisers.” Savage continues with the explanation that the idea of an RFID-busting show is now “on Discovery’s radar and they won’t let us go near it.”
Bad news for a show which has, in the past, demonstrated shortcomings in PIR-based security systems, tumbler-based safes, and top-end biometric locking systems: especially when one considers that hiding the truth about RFID’s security issues isn’t going particularly well. As has been demonstrated so very many times in the past, security through obscurity is no security at all.
Texas Instruments, on the other hand, recalls the conversation very differently. In a statement, the company claims that the credit card companies were only involved “to help Mythbusters get the right information,” and that only “one contactless payment company’s legal counsel member” was involved. The company further asserts that “technical questions were asked and answered” and that it was waiting “for Mythbusters to let us know when they were planning on showing the segment” when they heard “that the storyline had changed and they were pursuing a different angle which did not require our help.
No commentsAug 29
KDS Kelly Lays The Smackdown Part 2
Here we go again as Kelly continues to kick both mine and mongo’s butts across the world of podcasting, this time around were talking about up coming movies that were looking forward to. Including the new fast and the furious movie, tron 2 and G.I Joe.
No commentsAug 21
KDS Kelly Lays The Smackdown Part 1
It’s a first for KDS as we have our first female guest on the show Kelly “mrs leftybrown” Brown and boy dose she step up swinging. Join us as KD and Mongo get there ass handed to them by Kelly as they talk about film stars upcoming movies the press and Brendan Fraser Action figures!?
Music guest this week are strangeday and mainstreet exit
Aug 11
KDS On Podiobooks
following on from the last KDs were talking about podiobooks, we give you some ideas about what you can find out there.music guest this week are And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead,Crush and Black Atom.
No commentsJul 25
Tron 2 Revealed At Comic-Con

Disney unveiled computer animation that for a sequel to its classic 1982 animated SF movie Tron in a surprise announcement to more than 6,500 fans at Comic-Con International in San Diego on July 24.
The sequence opens with a camera twisting through the clouds during a thunderstorm, then down and across a grid. In the center, a figure in a new version of the blue light suit runs and jumps, and a new version of the lightcycle materializes under him.
He engages a second lightcycle rider in yellow-green in a chase, down stairs, up ramps, over planes of transparency, hurtling toward the grid’s edge, beyond which loom gray mountains, split by a narrow crevasse.
The cyclists speed side by side toward the crevasse, each trying to sideswipe the other one and throw him off balance.
Blue reaches the mountain and disappears into the gap. Green skids to a stop, perpendicular to the opening, and then takes off in a different direction.
Blue travels on a twisting path through the mountain; beyond lies a bridge leading to a vast cityscape.
Blue crosses Green’s laser trail, and his lightcycle shatters into a million pieces, throwing Blue through the air.
The footage then cuts to a vast, white live-action room in which sits an older version of what seems to be Kevin Flynn from the original film, still played by Jeff Bridges. He looks out a broad window and sees Green below him on the bridge.
Green has gotten off his bike, and is carrying a collapsed version of his lightcycle, approaches the crumpled body of Blue.
Green stops and looks up, toward a gigantic mountain rising above them. We can see white light shining from a rectangular window cut into the mountain side. Is this where Flynn is watching?
Blue says to Green, “This is just a game!”
Green replies, “Not anymore.”
Green throws his cycle at Blue and the footage cuts to black. The footage ends with a stylized “2,” which merges into the word “Tron.”
From:Scifi.com
No commentsJul 21
Trek’s Quinto Talks Spock

Zachary Quinto, who takes over the role of Spock from Leonard Nimoy in director J.J. Abrams’ upcoming Star Trek reboot movie, told SCI FI Wire that he based his characterization as much on the film’s script as on Nimoy’s previous performance of the iconic character.
“I really felt like my relationship to the character was specific to the text I was playing and to the world in which the character is being created right now, this time,” Quinto said in an interview at the Television Critics Association summer press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif., on July 20. “So I didn’t feel beholden to Leonard, other than to honor the origins of what he created, obviously. But I think the whole project was based in that philosophy, so it wasn’t a problem.”
Qunito plays Spock at an early stage in the character’s life. Nimoy also appears in the film, presumably as an aged version of the character, though Abrams and writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have remained coy about the exact storyline.
Quinto–who also returns to play the villainous Sylar in the third season of NBC’s superhero series Heroes–said that he wrapped his role in Star Trek at the end of March and that the film wrapped production at the end of April. It is now in post-production, with an eye to a May 8, 2009, release.
Quinto can be glimpsed in his new Spock makeup and costume in a preview poster for the film that will be debuted at Comic-Con International in San Diego this week; the poster, one of four, can be viewed at the official Web site under the “downloads” link.
“I think it looks great,” Quinto said of the teaser posters. “I think it’s a really cool concept to bring them all together. I think the colors look really great. And, you know, I think it’s a hearkening of what’s to come. … I think it’s going to be really cool.”
So how cool was it to put on the ears? “That was a momentous occasion,” Quinto admitted. “I shared it with my dog. He was there.”
1 commentJul 17
KDS Meets J.C. Hutchins
Kid Dogg and MongoBear bring you a special episode of the Kid Dogg Show as we get the chance to sit down and talk to J.C Hutchins the author of the 7th son podcast novel. We get to talk to JC about the world of 7th son and some of his new work as well. We also get to pick his brains over some comic book movies as well.
Want to check out the 7th son podcast and the J.C Hutchins blog you can find it all at http://jchutchins.net/. There you can find both the 7th son trilogy and 7th Son: OBSIDIAN. As well as other 7th son downloads.
Music guest this week are Celldweller with Birthright and The Gentlemen with It’s No So Much. Check out Celldweller at http://www.celldweller.com/ and you can find The Gentlemen at http://www.thegentlemenrock.com/
No commentsJul 17
Whedon Has Cabin Fever
Joss Whedon, who is producing the upcoming horror movie The Cabin in the Woods, was coy with SCI FI Wire about the film’s top-secret plot, except to say “bad things might happen to teenagers during the film.”
Whedon’s former Buffy the Vampire Slayer writer Drew Goddard, who penned this year’s hit Cloverfield, is co-writing Cabin with Whedon and makes his directorial debut with it. MGM gave a green light to the film’s production based on Whedon and Goddard’s spec script.
“All I can say about Cabin in the Woods is that it’s a movie, um, and that it’s a horror movie, and that it’s the kind of horror movie that you would expect from me and Drew Goddard if somebody put us in the same room,” Whedon said slyly in an interview. “Which nobody ever should.”
Whedon wouldn’t answer if the film would feature any familiar creatures, such as vampires or werewolves. “I am not going to tell you what there is,” he said. “I will tell you, it’s not good.”
Whedon is happy that the film has a go-ahead. “Well, we sold it, [and] we had a green light, which is a rare thing, but that was our condition,” he said. “It wasn’t [about the] big payday. It was the green light. So we’re ready to go, and we should start filming within the next six months, hopefully. We need to do a lot of preproduction, and it’s Drew’s first movie, so we’re making sure he gets the prep time … as a director. … And, quite frankly, [it's my first movie] as a producer, so we’re giving ourselves the prep time to do it right. But, you know, you should be looking for it a lot sooner than usually happens after a sale.”
Whedon plans to shoot the movie in and around Los Angeles, which will allow him to supervise his upcoming Fox SF TV series Dollhouse, which is gearing up to shoot 13 episodes. (That show debuts in early 2009.)
“[We] will be shooting parts of [Cabin] elsewhere, but most of it we’ll be shooting in Los Angeles so that I can do double duty,” Whedon said.
From Scifi
No commentsJul 17
Veteran rockers set for windfall
Ageing rock stars and session musicians will keep receiving royalties for their old recordings for the rest of their lives under a European Union plan.
Performers currently lose the rights to their recordings after 50 years.
Veteran artists like Sir Cliff Richard and Roger Daltrey are among those who have campaigned for it to be extended.
The EU has now announced a scheme for copyright on recordings to last for 95 years. EU governments and the European Parliament still need to give approval.
Under the current regime, the first rock ‘n’ roll recordings will go out of copyright in the coming years.
That means performers, producers and record labels would no longer get paid for sales or airplay, and the songs could be released cheaply by any record label.
A 95-year term would bridge the income gap that performers face when they turn 70, just as their early performances recorded in their 20s would lose protection
Charlie McCreevy
EC Single Market Commissioner
Sir Cliff’s first hits will go out of copyright on 1 January next year, while The Beatles’ catalogue will start to enter the public domain in 2013.
Sir Paul McCartney and U2 have also spoken out in favour of extending the copyright.
But the EU plan is potentially more important for the thousands of lesser-known band members, session musicians and producers who may be in greater need of an income during their retirement.
The proposals were unveiled by European Commission Single Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy.
“A 95-year term would bridge the income gap that performers face when they turn 70, just as their early performances recorded in their 20s would lose protection,” his scheme said.
‘Invisible’ musicians
Former Undertones singer Feargal Sharkey, now chief executive of British Music Rights, welcomed the move.
He said: “I am especially pleased that the announcement focuses on the ‘invisible’ members of our industry - the musicians, engineers and session players whose names are hidden away in the liner notes and credits.
“It is they, and not just ‘featured’ artists and record labels, who could derive real benefits from this move - and at a time in life when their earning power would be severely diminished.”
The BPI, which respresents British record labels, said the change would “ensure that our performers and labels are no longer treated as the second class citizens in the copyright world”.
‘Higher prices’
But the UK government, which rejected its own extension to the copyright term last year, said it was “not convinced” that there was an economic case for the move.
When it looked into the matter, the government said most artists would not benefit from an extension because of their record contracts.
Most musicians had contracts requiring them to pass royalties back to their record labels, the government said.
It also concluded that an extension would lead to increased costs for consumers, who would be forced to pay for royalties for longer.
And Anthony Baldwin, a musician and sound engineer who restores old recordings, told The Times: “If the legislation gets through, you can say goodbye to independent European vintage CD reissues.”
Separate royalties are paid for songwriting. Those payments will continue for 70 years after the death of the writer.
From:BBC
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