Bits & Pieces A lot of interesting tidbits have been accumulating here at StratVantage Central, so without further ado, or lengthy blather, here they are.

• Human TV: We’re used to Asia setting electronic trends, but it’s usually Japan, not China. At a recent property fair in China, models carried LCD monitors on their backs all around the show floor showing real estate videos. Hmmm, women as furniture – leading edge thinking from a progressive nation. Gives new meaning to 36-24-36! News.com
• Real Personal Radio: OK, it’s hard to believe a major corporation – General Motors, no less – is behind this idea. The auto giant backed a Carnegie Mellon University Human-Computer Interaction Institute Masters Program project called Roadcasting. It’s actually a great idea. Not only can you store your music playlists and MP3s on your (GM) car’s hard disk, you can also broadcast your tunes to surrounding vehicles. If you get bored with your own tunes, the system uses collaborative filtering, 802.11g Wi-Fi, and mesh networking to find other Roadcasting “stations” in range that have the tunage you like. The truly stunning thing is the range: 50km! Even more stunning is the fact that the code is Open Source! So what about copyrights? Well, the project leaders say they expect if there was commercial use of Roadcasting, performance fees would be paid through organizations like BMI. Yeah, I expect so. Don’t look for this tech in next year’s vehicles, though. The developers envision a rollout at decade’s end. Call me a cynic, but I predict rolling, thunderous convoys of beatboy, lowrider thumpers, all chilling to the same bass-heavy gangsta tune, terrorizing suburban shopping mall parking lots. Technology Review Roadcasting
• Dated Metaphor Alert: Remember back when people were clueless about what the Internet was and could mean? Remember how techies adopted the “Information Superhighway” metaphor to try to get the point across? Well, you don’t hear much about info highways anymore. So that’s why the title of an interesting report by The Institute for Local Self-Reliance strikes the ear a bit odd. Called “Who will own Minnesota's information highways?” the report bemoans the fact that the US has fallen way behind other countries, including many developing countries in Asia, in the availability of broadband Internet. The report analyzes 10 community-owned networks in and around Minnesota. The state was a pioneer in broadband, creating MNet in 1989 to provide videoconferencing over leased lines to state and local governments, public and private universities, and public schools. The report further takes on the thorny issue of metropolitan broadband networks and whether governments or private companies should own them. New Rules
• Get the Internet Picture: Ceiva is an interesting product: a picture frame that downloads and displays photos from the Internet. This is certainly not a device you want to put on random play! Actually, you and your friends and family sign up for the service and they can send you pix on a regular basis. It’s a pretty neat idea, but one that’s been around for a few years without taking the world by storm. I wrote about a wireless version in a previous SNS almost two years ago. Ceiva (ya know, like in rah-ceiva?)
• Really Big Monopoly:Are the shoe and car tokens in your Monopoly game just too boringly small? If you live in London, you can play the game with full size game pieces – or could, sometime in June. The game was sponsored by ad agency Tribal DDB, who has about the most annoying Website I’ve seen in a really long time. Just try to find anything about the game on it. I dare you! Using GPS receivers, apparently participants were to motor around the real city, fake-buying properties and such. Cool idea. Really bad approach, PR-wise. The Londonist
• A Raid on a Really Big Monopoly:You gotta hand it to the EU. Not only is it more serious about privacy than the US, but it also really doesn’t like near-monopolies abusing their power. Witness the dawn raid of several Intel offices in Europe by European antitrust regulators. Don’t hold your breath for this to happen in Redmond. Silicon.com
• They Doth Protest Too Much: I remember as a child, my mom would often chide me when I vigorously denied having done some heinous thing: “Got a guilty conscience?” Well, RFID manufacturers and their minions are responding the same way regarding the privacy-invading possibilities of the technology. You may know RFID is the practice of putting small tags on things and then reading information, usually an identifying number, off the tag at a distance with a reader. There’s a group called CASPIAN that’s pretty concerned that this sort of thing could get out of hand if it graduates from involving pallets of stuff destined for Wal-Mart to involving individual items that we buy, like clothes and razors. So a CASPIAN sympathizer got press credentials to go to an RFID convention and took pictures of item-level RFID tags. Gillette and other RFID backers, in deference to CASPIAN and others’ concerns about privacy, have said they have no plans for item-level RFIDs. So why did the conference organizers get all medieval on the reporter and insist she not publish the photos? Read her site and decide for yourself. Spychips Spychips pix
• Microsoft Asks Crackers for Help:Well, the turtle seems to be coming out of its shell, recognizing a changed world outside, and asking for help. In March, Microsoft held a two-day gathering of outsiders and in a stunning change of approach, opened the kimono and asked them to exploit flaws in Microsoft computing systems. TechRepublic’s members are divided on whether this is a good idea or not. Note that, in a somewhat quixotic attempt to draw a distinction, I don’t use the term “hackers” for people who break into systems. They are properly crackers, or, let’s face it, criminals. Hackers are people who find imaginative solutions to computer problems. Nuff said. TechRepublic.
• Tivo Anywhere: Yeah, if you really need to see that Will & Grace re-run while at work waiting for your code to compile, then you can get a Slingbox and stream it over the Net. PC Magazine
• Google – It’s Bigger Than All of Us: And now it has pictures of all of us. Well, at least it has pictures of everywhere we live. The company bought satellite imaging company Keyhole and now offers a free service called Earth 3.0 that lets you see images of anywhere on Earth, including 3D renderings of about 40 American cities. Not to be bested, Microsoft has announced MSN Virtual Earth. It remains to be seen how well the two services compare, but you can use some of Google’s technology without downloading the 10MB client simply by using their Google Maps search engine. Here’s where I live. PC Magazine
• Quantum Crypto Gets Practical: I’ve written before about an exciting security technology called quantum cryptography. Basically, it allows for tamper-proof networks. If a cracker so much as disturbs a single photon on a fiber optic line, the network will know it. A researcher from Internet pioneer BBN BBN Technologies is building the world's first continuously operating quantum cryptography network, a 12-mile 10-node glass loop under the streets of Boston and Cambridge. Network World
• Money for Old Magazines:My wife gets after me because I am saving the first two years of Wired magazine for posterity. Well, I’ll get the last laugh, I just know it, because Intel has paid a guy $10,000 for a 1965 copy of Electronics Magazine that featured and article that formed the basis of Intel co-founder Gordon Moore's famous Law. The bidding for my Wireds starts at $5,000. I’m not greedy. News.com
• Advertising in Your Face: Ever looked at the “chrome” of your browser – all those bits at the top and sides of your browser that are not Webpages – and thought, “Gee, I’d really prefer to be seeing a McDonald’s ad instead of this useless stuff?” Well, you’re in luck. Ooqa-ooqa™ by United Virtualities animates the chrome with wonderfully entertaining and enlighting advertising! The company says Ooqa-ooqa “adds up to 20% more PRIME inventory to leverage the advertising offer, as well as a whole new way of engaging users all while never blocking content.” The image above is my IE browser on Ooqa-ooqa. Any questions? United Virtualities
• Now That’s Advertising! If you hate spam (and who the heck could like it?) you’ll enjoy this Matrix-esque advert for a technology called CaseKeys. Enter the Spaminatrix. Ubergeek
• Random Bonus Bit: Apropos of Nothing – Have you ever wondered what the pompitous of love is? And how to spell it (certainly not pompatous!)? Only a true Stevie “Guitar” Miller fan, in a very deep voice, would know. The Straight Dope