The AP reports that a company in California is not happy about code in the Chinese mandated personal computer Internet-filtering.

Solid Oak Software of Santa Barbara said Friday that parts of its filtering software, which is designed for parents, are being used in the “Green Dam-Youth Escort” filtering software that must be packaged with all computers sold in China from July 1.

There is some irony in this quote:

“I don’t know how far you can try and reach into China and try to stop stuff like this,” he said in an interview. “We’re still trying to assess what they’re doing.”

A phone number for the Chinese developer could not immediately be located. A call by The Associated Press to China’s embassy in the U.S. after business hours Friday went unanswered.

Can’t see what’s going on? Can’t “reach into China”? It must be especially frustrating to be a filtering company that gets filtered out.

Sold Oak seems to have a sold case, but here’s more irony:

A report released Thursday by University of Michigan researchers who examined the Chinese software supports Solid Oak’s claim that the Green Dam software contains pirated code. The report also found serious security vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to hijack PCs running the Chinese software.

Might be wise to differentiate the code that was stolen from the code that allows PCs to be hijacked. On the other hand, maybe it would be wiser to get the Chinese to steal code that is known to have a backdoor, which can then be used to prove that the code is stolen? Just kidding, the code in question seems to be little more than blacklist files, which probably go stale without management anyway. Solid Oak could be congratulating the Chinese on their careful selection of code and offering an update and maintenance service for ongoing quality control.

The BBC warns that your XMas photos posted on the Internet might end up in the hands of marketing, and then you can only imagine what will happen

“It’s a life-size picture in a grocery store window in Prague – my Christmas card photo!” said a startled Ms Smith, 36, who lives in a suburb of St Louis.

Mario Bertuccio, whose Grazie shop specialises in Italian food imports, said that he thought the image had been computer-generated.

Well, it was computer-generated. Does that change anything? The family says they are not taking any chances with new images.

They said they would add a watermark to any family photos they post in the future.

Will the shop still use it with a watermark? Perhaps they could also reduce the quality so it is less likely to be useful for window-sized posters in grocery stores.

Holy smokes (pun intended). The dream is becoming a reality

When Volvo announced plans earlier this week to produce a plug-in diesel hybrid, green car fans understandably got excited. Consider the possibilities of a safe, stylish and highly functional Volvo V70;but one with plug-in capacity, the ability to go 30 or so miles on electricity alone, and the rest of the power coming from an efficient diesel engine. Media reports said this would be “a reality” by 2012.

Three years to a hybrid-diesel wagon is awesome, but not soon enough. The story mentions that Volvo had a concept car in 1992, so this is really a project that has taken twenty years to come to fruition.

Marketing seems to be the main obstacle, not technology.

The company admits that a diesel vehicle with a lithium ion battery will be expensive — and that’s the main point of the company’s announcement this week. Working with Vattenfall, Volvo hopes to gain a better understanding of the driving and charging habits of plug-in drivers. In this way, it can refine the design of its plug-in hybrid and determine if the lithium ion battery — the most expensive component in a plug-in hybrid or electric car — can be made smaller. If so, then the vehicle can be made more efficient, cheaper and especially safer. After all, it’s a Volvo.

The current Volvo V70 plug-in hybrid demonstration car uses a 11.3 kWh battery pack, that at current prices could cost $10,000 or more. Volvo expects those prices to come down, especially if the battery is downsized to meet, but not exceed, consumer needs. The battery pack is combined with a front-wheel drive diesel engine with a rear-wheel drive electric motor. The high cost of combining hybrid and diesel technology so far has prevented auto companies from introducing diesel-powered hybrids — with or without a plug.

Bah, costs come down, as the article suggests not to mention most buyers are not motivated by money alone. I mean people still are paying premium prices for BMW and Cadillac dinos that have a horrible schedule for depreciation, especially today. I just heard that a BMW was found buried in Texas in an attempt at insurance fraud, cars in Miami are showing up in the river, and in Nevada there has been a rash of SUV fires.

Anyway, setting price and irrational consumerism aside, I wonder if the front-diesel rear-electric could be driven as an AWD variant? Awesomeness. I also wonder if GM will be able to pull its sixteen cylinder head out of its tailpipe (what were they thinking?!) and finally get with the clean diesel program. They have made some hints so I guess it isn’t too crazy to hope for a Cadillac diesel-hybrid sport-utility wagon.

Hong Kong police are struggling to figure out who is pouring acid on pedestrians, Time Magazine reports:

After Mongkok’s last acid attack, which occurred May 16, police installed eight CCTV surveillance cameras on two buildings in the area to try to catch the culprit the next time he or she struck. But after spending about $220,000 on the equipment, none of the cameras’ footage caught this week’s attack. Senior Superintendent Edward Leung Ka-ming of the Kowloon West regional crime unit said the collected footage needed to be “enhanced” because of its poor resolution to prove useful. While the district council decides what step to take next with the cameras, the police hope pedestrians might have some tips of their own.

A bottle full of acid was dropped from a building on June 8th, said to have been a rainy night. When it exploded twenty-four people were injured.

Did police realize they needed better resolution only after installing the cameras? And did they plan on any upgrade path for resolution or will it require physical and on-site replacement? Perhaps an even better question is whether the $200K could have been spent on other control measures such as nets covering the street. Not an ideal solution, but if the concern is keeping shoppers feeling safe then nets probably make more sense as they have prevention capabilities rather than just detection.