Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Here’s an innovative business plan for you: start up an insurance company whose sole purpose is to cover your customers’ fines should they get busted for illegal file sharing, thereby creating a clientele that by default is composed completely of criminals. Well believe it or not, a Swedish “entrepreneur” has begun to offer this very service to his fellow citizens — for only $19 per year,  Magnus Braath’s company Tankafritt promises to pay any penalties incurred from crackdowns on your rampant piracy, and he’ll even throw in a free T-shirt to help you glorify your outlaw status. (Yes, you guessed it, the shirt actually does read “I got convicted for file-sharing and all I got was this lousy T-shirt”). Braath claims that he started the business as a statement against recent changes in Swedish law that had the nerve to criminalize illegal downloading, and that low conviction rates and relatively minor fines will allow him to keep the venture financially solvent. Hey Magnus, if you’re looking to expand your operation, we hear that Spain’s just passed some legislation that will probably create quite the demand for your unique little service — who knows, with some hard work and a bit of luck, you could end up becoming the Geico of software and content piracy.

[Via Techdirt and Slashdot]

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Filed under: Wireless

In what can only be described as extreme paranoia or as an extreme health risk, a Swedish town had a bit of a health scare upon the activation of a WiMAX base-station a few weeks ago. According to Sweden’s SVT, which reported on the incident, the local hospital emergency room was flooded with calls regarding various symptoms such as headaches, difficulty breathing, blurry vision and even two cases of heart arrhythmia. All of this was mere hours after the base station was activated, and the symptoms went away once the station was deactivated, or if the sufferer moved away from that radio tower of death. Apparently Sweden was the first country to recognise electromagnetic hypersensitivity as a valid medical condition, and there are already talks of getting the government to shut down the nation’s WiMAX networks while the claims are investigated. The UN recognises EHS as a “real and sometimes disabling condition,” and say that around 3% of the world’s population is effected by high frequency magnetic radiation in such ways. We’ll wait for a few more studies to come through and completely conflict with each other so we can go on with our happily ignorant mobile lifestyles.

[Via The Inquirer]

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Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

France’s iPod law came and went, and Denmark‘s anti-iTunes Music Store pressure didn’t really seem gather a whole lot of steam; we just saw Norway turn to their own national consumer ombudsman for assistance in prying open Apple’s FairPlay DRM so Apple music will, um, play fairly on other devices. But now we can tack on another to the growing number of European nations dissatisfied with Apple’s DRM lockbox: Sweden. The Swedish Consumer Agency spokeswoman Marianne Aabyhammar had this to say about the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish anti-iTunes triumvirate: “iTunes’ terms and conditions are illegal in all three countries,” and “If iTunes fails to improve its terms and conditions in Sweden, we may take the case to Sweden’s market court.” Funny how this same spirit of Swedish openness drove Jens of Sweden out of business, but let’s keep focused; there’s no denying that we’re past the tipping point, and the pressure by European states for Appleto open its music systems is only going to increase in virulence. If Apple’s going to make it out of this one unscathed, it seems like they might have to seriously reconsider their business model — at least in Europe.

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Transportation

That annoying winter morning ice-scraping ritual that much of the country is forced to endure pre-commute (well, those of you who travel to work by car instead of shuffling the five feet from bed to desk) may soon be a thing of the past, thanks to a new film developed by a Dartmouth University professor that can de-ice treated surfaces almost instantly. Engineering prof Victor Petrenko (not, as Cnet helpfully points out, the same man who dazzled us-- though also on ice -- at the 1992 Olympics) had previously worked on creating ice-repellent materials with government funding before deciding that the cold stuff will inherently stick to any surface due to its triple-bonding ability, and starting a company called Ice Engineering to shift his research focus onto thin films that could be applied to existing structures. The result was a breakthrough technology called pulse electrothermal de-icing (PETD), whose brief bursts of electricity not only break the two strongest chemical bonds between ice and surface almost immediately, but can be shortened to actually cause the ice to rapidly melt and re-freeze in a stronger bond for applications like skiing where greater stickiness is desired. Although there are no immediate plans to implement this film onto passenger cars -- the first applications will be for industrial de-icing of airplane wings, windshields, and turbines, and on the upcoming Swedish Uddevalla Bridge -- you can bet that the Lexuses, BMW's, and Mercedes' of the world are eagerly eying this tech as yet another way to differentiate their high-end offerings and justify those luxury pricetags.

[Via Slashdot]