Podmailer is now translated into spanish

Thanks to various helpful contributors (Shemes, Willy Walker, and Bernard), Podmailer is now translated in spanish! It is a great leap towards internationalization.

On behalf on the whole podmailing.com team, let me thank all of you.

This translation will be available in a few days from now, as we release our next version.

How about you? If you want to translate Podmailer in your favorite language, it's very easy: just go to our contributor's page and follow the instructions there. Start today! ;)

To celebrate this, we now have a del.icio.us feed dedicated to podmailing.com in spanish:
http://del.icio.us/vipeers/ES
Check it out from time to time.

Hasta la vista

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Con la ayuda de varios contribuidores (Shemes, Willy Walker, y Bernard), ahora Podmailer es traducido en español. ¡Viva la internacionalización!

En nombre del equipo entero de podmailing.com, le agradece mucho.

Esta traducción estará disponible desde algunos días, cuando lanzamos nuestra versión siguiente.

¿Y tu? Si deseas traducir Podmailer en tu lengua preferida, es muy fácil: vaya a la página de contribución y sigue las instrucciones. ¡Empieze hoy! ;)

Tenemos un del.icio.us feed que trata de podmailing.com español:
http://del.icio.us/vipeers/ES

Hasta la vista

Attack of the Zombie Pigeons

It seams serious : according to an article on engadget, Chinese scientists have managed to control the movement of a flying pigeon, thanks to micro electrodes planted in its brain.

Absolutely remarkable ! but you know, that's progress.

They found absolutely no use for that feat but it is one more step towards cyborgs and other kinds of futuristic robots. As I often say, we live in a sci-fi movie...

Edit: Wired has some pictures - very ugly and cool

Bram Cohen comments on the BitTorrent Entertainment Network

Get the whole story on BitTorrent and their newly released content service, and some very interesting comments by Bram Cohen himself, in this article by Thomas Mennecke on slyck.com
I am very pleased to welcome Bram amongst the professionals who create technologies for media distribution and implement DRM although we hate it. Steve Jobs also took a stand against DRM not so long ago.
My company, zSlide, is also in the same place: we create digital media software as a B2B offer, and most of the time our clients tell us their content providers impose the use of DRM. But studies recently showed that a majority of people working for music labels were against DRM.
I hope this trend will grow in time, don't you?

Robots Feeling Emotions While Sweeping My Floor

Can you believe that? Scientists working on giving emotions to robots!
That's what Richard Gray reported on telegraph.co.uk last week. As much as I love the idea of robots with intelligence and feelings, I don't agree with the approach of this article.
The news is that scientists announce domestic robots in 10 years which will be capable of multiple tasks, and emotions will be introduced into these robots to help them "make better decisions, learn more effectively and interact more appropriately".

Although I agree with that vision, I am troubled by the way these groundbreaking innovations are introduced. It is all focused on androids and human-like tasks and emotions. But if any emotions are happening, they can only be a software feature. And that article says nothing of software. I mean if software can have emotions in a few years then it will happen in your PC, or in your web browser, long before it makes any sense inside an actual robot. And the "actual robot" concept raises many other questions in the field of hardware, commodity, safety etc. I mean imitating the human body and imitating the human mind are two very different things. I wish this distinction were better addressed when predicting the future.

This reminds me of the disappointment I had when I saw A.I. (the movie) a few years ago. The story is about a "child" android which is introduced into a human family. This kid-bot actually takes part in a mother-child relationship, and the movie raises questions and proposes answers to what this implies about the future of humankind.

What frustrated me in A.I. is that it wasn't clear if the child-bot was an automaton imitating love or an intelligent robot actually feeling love. What is the difference between showing emotions and actually feeling emotions? That is the question.
The answer lies in the concept of conscience. The movie didn't make any case of this difference, and treated stupid automata such as the teddy bear on the same grounds as seemingly (or actually?) conscious robots (the kid-bot).

Back to the telegraph's article: I doubt that in 10 years from now we will have achieved seemingly conscious behaviors in software. Passing the Turing Test for real will still be at least 10 years away, and in that regard these robots will still be narrow-AI-minded and emotionless.

As a conclusion I guess that the scientists referenced in the article mean we will implement emotion-based decision-making to enhance these robots. To my mind this is not the same thing as emotions.

Mobile Video Myth or Fiction or What?

Have you heard the latest stories of Video on Mobiles?
Katie posted her impressions on that subject on GigaOM. She only gave mobile video a blah grade: C+. She says she prefers watching video on her iPod. Good point. I agree and that's why I would argue that mobile phones today can be used the same way as iPod. My company, zSlide, develops a Media Player B2B software offer just for that. Contact me if you're interested.

Now for watching the video, my own best experience so far was when I tried watching a video from a Samsung handset displayed inside a pair of glasses emulating a wide screen - that was on Orange's Booth at last year's 3GSM. Very futuristic and cool.

So I'm wondering, what are your positive experiences of mobile video?

One step further... Introducing Podmailer 0.8.6

As of last thursday, the latest Podmailer version to date is available for download on podmailing.com. Windows - Mac

It is once again a step further towards ease of use, speed, and robustness - and it's always free.

The Podmailing Team would like to thank all the beta-testers for their dedication in using earlier versions of our service. We've received tremendous loads of feedback, and we've made good use of it.

We ensure you that new and upcoming features will make your podmailing experience increasingly enjoyable.

Even more important, it is now based on a brand new server-side architecture, that will soon reveal its potential. Check out podmailing.com developers section once in a while, as we continuously add interesting info on how our service works, and how you can contribute to it.

New in Podmailer v0.8.6:

• Bug fixes
• No more configuration required to send podmails
• Much better reliability for sending folders
• Faster transfer speed
• A real podmail upload progress bar, also used for sending express podmails
• No more "basic" and "advanced" modes
• Improved thumbnails preview

Bastien - podmailing.com

DRM Will Disappear Rather Sooner

Attention ! Coup de Théâtre !

Steve Jobs has just announced that he stands with the consumers : he encourages the music majors to authorize distribution of their content on the Internet without DRM.

Things are moving fast on the Internet, right? But I'm also under the impression that we have been waiting for the end of DRM for too long already. DRM is bad for consumers, as it gives less value compared to the CD - that's not progress!! Even DRM's legality is being challenged in court and parliaments around the world.

Technically also, DRM is a heresy:

• The DRMs which are imposed for music and video do not secure a perimeter: in fact the DRM-free versions (CD, DVD) of the same content are distributed anyhow by the majors in retail and broadcast.
• These DRMs prevent software developers from creating compatibility - which is a fundamental virtue in software creation.

As the publisher of Omega Media Player for Windows (B2B), I feel particularly concerned:

The interest of our product is to interface with online content stores (music, VOD, video-games) and to synch with mobile devices. With the currently imposed DRM, we can't support iPod, which represents a huge market share!

Other example: today if one of our clients opens an online music store, the music tracks that the user receives will use Microsoft DRM and they won't play on his mobile phone or his PSP. Good thing we have a team working around these issues and managing this complexity seamlessly for the user.

But I think this energy could be much better spent on satisfying the consumer.

All that we need is a user experience which is practical and enjoyable and without any artificial limitations and then: give us the contents we love without fuss, and without fear of getting caught.

Evolution of the Apple Mouse

If you're interested in seeing what the Apple Mouse looked like over the past 25 years, check out this post by John Ward.

You know I have actually used each and every one of them. Yes, including the Lisa mouse which appears in the post's comments.   

On another front, yesterday I was discussing Apple mice with my fellow Benoit, who just switched to a MacBook from his PC the other day. I noted that although Apple has finally designed one great mouse with 3 buttons and an innovative scroll-wheel improvement (the mighty mouse), Macintosh laptops still only have one mouse button.

When will Apple (or should I write Steve?) understand that it's a pain in the daily life of every Mac user out there?

BitTorrent About to Launch a P2P Content Service

Great news! Lightreading reports that the content service from BitTorrent Inc. will be launched in February.

Spokeswoman Lily Lin promises a new completely original user interface. Let's hope they deliver on it.

How will the BitTorrent superiority play a part in making this offer special? I'm eager to find out.

Technically, one can wonder how open this platform will be:

• Will other BitTorrent clients be able to access the same content?
• Will they put forward any user-generated content?
• What kind of DRM will they choose?
• Will it be accessible from Europe?