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It's the latest digital media murder mystery: TiVo Series2's TiVoToGo enabled limited portability of recorded content to PCs and other devices, but the TiVo Series3 HD did not include this feature when recently released. In other words, if you want to upgrade to HD, you have to downgrade your TiVo's features.

You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to guess that this story somehow involves Hollywood, the FCC, and 'digital rights management' (DRM) restrictions. EFF has opposed these restrictions every step of the way, and, in an EFF white paper released today, we'll explain digital cable DRM's sordid history, how digital cable and satellite DRM may affect you, and what you can do to fight back.

In short, get ready for copying limits on cable and satellite content that won't stop 'Internet piracy' but will stop you from making legitimate use of lawfully acquired content. You'll be forced to only buy devices with limited features, and restricted digital outputs could break compatibility with your current HD displays and receivers, even though you may have already invested thousands of dollars in them. Innovators will have to beg permission before inventing new digital devices that help you get more from your satellite and cable content.

Unfortunately, TiVoToGo's disappearance is just the tip of the iceberg. But you can still take steps to fight back -- use EFF's Action Center to stop cable providers from making DRM even worse, and check out the other action items on our cable and satellite DRM page.

(Cross-posted at EFF's DeepLinks)

• Microsoft Media Player shreds your rights: 'Think DRM was bad already? Think I was joking when I said the plan was tostart with barely tolerable incursions on your rights, then turn thethumbscrews? Welcome to Windows Media Player 11, and the rights get chippedaway a lot more.'
• Microsoft DRM To Get Even Tighter: 'I think I'm going to wait for Windows Media Player 12 to come out, whichreportedly will include DRM that doesn't let you listen to your music atall. All the major recording labels are on board with this format, so we mayfinally get a realistic alternative to iTunes without the clumsy Mac-likeinterface. Plus, it won't cost much more per track than the average iTunessong now. There will also be more visualizations included to help youimagine what the music you're playing actualy sounds like.'

In the echo of the Supreme Court’s resounding affirmation last week of the rights of individuals to a fair trial, of the limits of the power of the executive, and of a system of checks and balances—in other words, the principles on which our country was founded, ill-defined war or no—this 230th anniversary of the independence of our country seems especially dear. So I like to turn back to the source of much of that dearness, as well as to look around for some other words of inspiration. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in the last letter of his life, ten days before his death:

May it [the Declaration of Independence] be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

The emphasis, of course, is mine.

AutoStich is the world's first fully automatic 2D image stitcher. Capable of stitching full view panoramas without any user input whatsoever, AutoStitch is a breakthrough technology for panoramic photography, VR and visualisation applications.

David Burnett talks to the New York Times on what cameras he uses and why he mainly shoots digital now - he's another Canon 20D user.  The article is interesting, but the audio slideshow is much more interesting.  He explains that he uses a number of different cameras depending on the type of photo he's going for and on the slideshow there's a few examples.

I love my 20D, but it's not a camera that I can use all the time, it's just too big, so I also have a Canon SD500 which I've mentioned before.  I'll get different types of photos from each camera; I can't do the same things with the SD500 that I can do with the 20D, but I can take it places a 20D just isn't appropriate.  It's hard to be inconspicuous with a large SLR camera and buy the time I've tweaked the settings the moment is lost.  The SD500 I use for more spontaneous photos, I don't mess with the settings, just accept the defaults and let the camera deal with the situation and most of the time it does a great job, probably better than I could have done manually.  Take this as an example - that was shot at dawn directly into the rising sun with the SD500 and captured the scene exactly as I wanted it.  The 20D on the otherhand lets me get photos like this, which the SD500 wasn't able to manage (subjects lit entirely by candle light on a moving boat).  The SD500 also shoots video, a feature I never thought I'd use as I've always prefered still shots, but I found a few instances when video captured a scene much better than a still image could.  The 20D as you'd expect from an SLR doesn't capture video.  Different tools for different jobs.

The New York Times also has some tips on digital photography, nothing really new to me there, but it might be off interested to any just getting into digital.

I've always owned Canon cameras and was looking around for a new small digital camera and decided on the Canon SD500.  I haven't had a small camera for a few years - the last being a Canon S100 (the original digital Elph/Ixus) which I enjoyed using.  My goal with this camera is to be a companion to my digital SLR mainly for use when carrying the SLR isn't practical, so this is more of a backup camera.

First, the basics.  The SD500 is small.  It's about the size of a deck of cards.  Small doesn't mean featureless though, it has a resolution of 7.1 megapixels and a 3x optical zoom.  Storage is via an SD card.

What's in the box?  Just the basics that you would expect, a USB cable, battery and an A/V cable.  There isn't an included cases which is a shame as the camera looks like it could get scratched easily and it would be nice to have something to protect the large LCD on the back of the camera.  Canon do sell an accessory kit though which is highly recommended as it includes a case and a battery which can often be purchased for less than the cost of the battery.

Canon include a 32 megabyte SD card with the camera which will store just 9 photos at the highest resolution and quality. A 1 gigabyte card will hold about 360 images.

The camera is pretty easy to use with an intuitive menu system operated with the buttons on the back of the camera.  When turning the camera on you'll be greeted with an irritating noise from the internal speaker, thankfully this can easily be disabled in the customization menus, which also allow you to change the noise made when a photo is taken (a shutter sound is just fine thank you) and the background picture displayed when turning the camera on - not a feature I'd ever care about.  Startup time is good, the camera is ready to be used almost straight away, which wasn't the case for earlier models.  The LCD displays is large and bright and gives a good impression of the final output of a photo.

The camera has a 3x optical zoom and a digital zoom which much to my surprise was disabled by default on the camera.  I've never been a fan of digital zoom and it's nice to see Canon encouraging people not to use it by disabling it by default.  It's far better to zoom and crop on a computer than it is on the camera.

Picture quality is impressive so far.  I haven't taken many pictures yet, but I have no complaints with the output.  The camera supports USB2.0 so transfers to a computer are nice and fast - just as well with the size of the files produced.

There are a few features I want to also mention:

Stitch assist mode.  This is a great feature.  When activated the camera gives you the option of taking photos from left to right or right to left; after the first photo is taken the result is shown on the LCD display, but shrunk so you can frame your next shot against the previous shot. The camera does not attempt to stitch the photos together for you, but guides you so that you can see what you've taken so far and don't miss part of the panorama you are shooting. 

Scene assist mode.  There are a number of presets pre-programmed with general styles of photo such as 'night' 'portrait' etc.  The camera adjusts the settings automatically to be the best for that style of shot.  Useful for quick photos that you don't have time to manual configure settings.

That's it for my first thoughts; I'll post some more once I've used it a bit more. 

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William Williams is a man of conviction (literally).  He lives completely off the grid.  Oh and he's fighting a power company's right to install a guy wire in his yard.  Something about the underdog story I really like.

In the Pittsburgh area, a man went to jail rather than let the local power company run an electric line through his property. He's also in some hot water for refusing to connect to the local sewer system. Although he’s repeatedly lost in criminal court, William Williams, 76, of Cecil, vows to continue removing the guy wire and its anchor in his yard each time the power company replaces them. For Mr. Williams, it’s all a matter of civil disobedience. He said he refuses to surrender his property rights to the utilities.

[Read more here]

I took a course on the History of the Civil Rights Movement when I was at the University of Virginia. Taught by Julian Bond, a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the course’s readings alone were enough to make any thoughtful American think long and hard about social justice, as was the opportunity to research local reactions to the movement (see my paper on Virginia’s Massive Resistance movement). One of the thoughts I had at the time was about what I would have done if I were alive in the movement years.

Now, of course, I know: I would have been performing somewhere rather than protesting. Because that’s how the quest for justice played out today: my colleagues and pastors from Old South were at the State House rallying for equal marriage while I was rehearsing the Gurrelieder at Tanglewood.

—Someone with less of an axe to grind than mine, by the way, should look at the signs on both sides of the street from today’s protest and learn what can be learned from them about the protesters. The thing that struck me—and again, I’m biased—is the preponderance of identical “Let the People Vote” signs, professionally made (by VoteOnMarriage.org, who don’t merit a link but who also apparently trucked in cases of water), on the anti-equal-marriage side, and how the few off-message signs that appear on that side of the street are incoherent and threatening, while just about every sign on the pro-equal-marriage side is handmade and many of them are funny or thoughtful. I especially like this rebuttal to the specious “let the people vote” argument.

Fortunately there are others out there who are more proactive than me, including the Tin Man, who has decided to take advantage of his current between-positions status to try to make a new career in gay-rights law.

For more context on the constitutional convention today—and the protesters—check out Bay Windows’ liveblog. To take a look at what the other side is saying, see VoteOnMarriage.org’s “Arguments for Marriage” page, which is a fine collection of strawmen.