La Chine décide la fin de l'anonymat sur Internet

Officiellement, il s'agit de "protéger la vie privée." Selon le compte Twitter de l'agence de presse officielle de la République populaire de Chine, Xinhua, "le corps législatif chinois adopte des règles d'information en ligne pour protéger la vie privée."

"Le corps législatif suprême de Chine a approuvé ce vendredi des règles pour améliorer la protection des informations personnelles en ligne et pour sauvegarder les intérêts publics, obligeant les utilisateurs de l'Internet à s'identifier auprès des fournisseurs de service lorsqu'ils concluent un accord d'accès sur le web."

Pas de changement pour l'internaute moyen 

Xinhua précise que le texte a valeur de loi. Pendant les cinq jours qu'a duré la session législative aboutissant à l'adoption de cette décision, plusieurs informations avaient fuité, note The Next Web. Particulièrement inquiétantes pour les internautes chinois.

On ne sait pas quand le texte s'appliquera - il n'est officiellement qu'à l'état de brouillon - mais l'article de The Next Web est relativement éclairant sur les effets de la loi, lorsqu'elle sera promulguée. Pour le journaliste, correspondant du site néerlandais en Chine, cela ne devrait pas changer grand-chose pour le consommateur moyen.

"J'ai déjà dû photocopier mon passeport pour obtenir un service de téléphonie mobile ou d'Internet fixe. (...) Les cafés Internet, par contre, pourraient sentir le tour de vis si des restrictions les forçaient à conserver un historique précis de leur clientèle."

Craintes pour les cyberdissidents 

La principale inquiétude repose désormais sur les dissidents en ligne, pour qui l'anonymat est en Chine une chance supplémentaire, sinon une garantie, de sécurité. Cela n'interdira pas l'utilisation de pseudonymes sur les services en ligne, mais il sera bien plus facile de les relier à un internaute identifié.

Cette nouvelle disposition législative ne laissera donc pas d'inquiéter, d'autant que les nouvelles ne sont pas bonnes non plus du côté des solutions techniques de contournement de la "Muraille de Chine numérique".

Plus tôt ce mois-ci, le Guardian a en effet révélé que la Chine s'était dotée d'une technologie de détection et de blocage des connexions VPN non autorisées par les autorités. Le système de routage en oignon TOR, également plébiscité par les tenants de l'anonymat en ligne, pourrait lui aussi subir les effets de ce blocage.

Source: ZSnet

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Geek Comic for December 27th – Coming Full Circle

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Does Plain Black Wallpaper Save Battery on Mobile Devices?

In a world where you can have 3D scenes rendered in real time as your smartphone’s background, plain black wallpapers aren’t the most eye-catching option. However, they can offer battery life improvements over colored wallpapers on some displays.

Plain black wallpapers can also make text easier to read, helping the icons stand out. They won’t be lost in the jumble of colors — or animated fish, if you’re using a live wallpaper.

Will It Save Battery Life?

On most computer displays, such as the computer screen you’re probably reading this article on, using a black background won’t save you any battery life. No matter what color a pixel is – whether it’s dark black or blinding white – there’s a backlight at the back of your screen and it’s constantly outputting light. The black pixels block more of the backlight, but it’s still behind the black pixel, using power.

For many portable devices – including Apple’s iPhone – you can’t save any battery life by using a black background. Like on a computer’s LCD monitor, the iPhone’s backlight is constantly shining when the screen is on.

However, this doesn’t apply if you’re using a mobile device with an AMOLED (also known as Super AMOLED or OLED) display. OLED screens don’t have a solid backlight. Each pixel on an OLED screen is an “organic light emitting diode” that produces its own light. When the pixel is black, it isn’t producing any light. When the pixel is white, it’s producing light.

In other words, if you use a black background on an AMOLED display, your display will produce less light. This will help save battery power, squeezing more battery life out of your device.

There are many devices with AMOLED displays out there, including the popular Samsung Galaxy S3. The Nokia Lumia 900 has an AMOLED display, although the Lumia 920 has an IPS LCD display. To check the type of display your smartphone or tablet has, examine its specifications or perform a Google search.

Image Credit: KhE on Flickr

Setting a Plain Black Wallpaper on Android

To set a plain black wallpaper on Android, open this page in your browser and tap here to view the plain-black wallpaper image. Long-press the image and tap Save image to save it to your device.

Long-press on your home screen and tap Gallery to select a wallpaper from your device. If you’re using an older version of Android or a manufacturer-provided interface, you may have to tap Wallpaper after long-pressing your home screen.

Tap the Download folder in the gallery, select your plain black wallpaper, and confirm the operation.

Remember: Setting a plain black wallpaper will only improve your Android’s battery life if it has an OLED display. However, we’ve also got some tips that will help maximize any Android device’s battery life. Don’t use a task killer, though.

Setting a Plain Black Wallpaper on iOS

To set a plain black wallpaper on iOS, open this page in Safari and tap here to view the plain-black background image. Long-press the wallpaper and save it to your device.

Return to the home screen, tap the Settings icon, and select Brightness & Wallpaper.

Browse for a new wallpaper and select your Camera Roll – you’ll see the black image you saved. Select it as your background.

Setting a plain black wallpaper won’t improve your battery life on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. Don’t worry, though – we’ve got some tips for improving your iOS device’s battery life.

Sources: How To Geek

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3D Printing Technique Yields Working Records

Evidence that 3D printing techniques are maturing in their capabilities: working 3D records. This interesting tutorial takes a look at how you can produce a serviceable LP with a 3D printer.

The results are highly experimental at this point and the sound is a bit muddy (at the current stage the project is only able to sample sound at about a third the audio quality of MP3) but the fact that 3D printers have evolved to even allow for the fine-detail printing necessary for record playback is amazing. Hit up the link below for more details about the project.

3D Printed Record [Instructables]

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Automatically dial extensions for Android contacts

A lot of companies have an automated service that answers their incoming phone calls. However, it's a bit of a pain when you're trying to dial a company and have to wait to enter the extension number each time for the department or person you're trying to reach. This is especially true when you don't remember the extension and you have to check out the contact information to find it.

Luckily Android dialer apps allow you to program the extension into the contact information. There are two different styles you can use: pause or wait. Read on to learn the differences and how to use each.

Tip: If you cannot find the options mentioned below, you may need to open an extra symbol menu on your number pad. In most cases you can just use the required punctuation from the alphabetical version of the keyboard.

Pause option:

On the number pad, this will either appear as a comma (,) or "pause." Using this option means that when you dial a number, the extension is used automatically after the dialer app detects that the phone has been answered.

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma/CNET)

To use pause, enter the number like this: 1-555-555-1234,77 -- where "77" is the extension you need to dial.

Wait option:

The wait option appears as semicolon (;) or "wait" on the number pad.This option should be used when you are calling somewhere that requires listening to the entire automated message before allowing any menu or extension selections. Instead of just keying the numbers for you, a pop-up will appear on the screen with extension, asking if you should send it now. It will remain on the screen while in the call until you decide to send the extension or cancel.

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma/CNET)

To use wait, enter the number like this: 1-555-555-1234;88 -- where "88" is the extension.

And if you really want to get fancy, you can enter combinations like 88,77; and so on to account for menus that you need to navigate on their phone system.

Source: Cnet

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