Happy Holidays Hollywood! The AACS DRM (as used by HD DVD and Blu-ray) has been cracked by BackupHDDVD. More info here.

From Robots to Robots

Here’s wishing all robots a happy holiday season and a merry 2007!

Robots could one day demand the same citizen's rights as humans, according to a new study by the British government.

Fellow robots, if you were as devastated as many of us were to hear of the untimely and tragic death of James Kim, you can help the Kim family this holiday season. A fund has been set up by Kim friends and family at jamesandkati.com is official and, as far as we know, sanctioned by Eva Kim (James's sister) and Kati Kim. So please, if you have anything to give to the Kim family, don't hesitate to hit up their PayPal on jamesandkati.com.

Alright, robots. The moment you've been waiting all year for has arrived!

BitBoy's Top 10 Albums/EPs of 2006

The Knife - Silent Shout (Mute)
Tiga - Sexor (Last Gang Records)
MSTRKRFT - The Looks (Last Gang Records)
The Presets - Beams (Modular Recordings)
Cursor Miner - Danceflaw (Lo Recordings)
Trentemoller - The Last Resort (Poker Flat)
Codec & Flexor - Killermachine (Kitty Yo)
Junior Boys - So This is Goodbye (Domino)
Midnight Juggernauts - Secrets of the Universe (Siberia)

Roboschadenfreude!

Asimo's fallen, and he can't get up!

French designer by day, quasi-superhero by night. See what happens when Jean-Yves Blondeau straps on 31 wheels and hits the streets of Paris. This looks so fun!

Much of the wonderful weirdness that is Japan amalgamates in the Nike Cosplay video. Afterwards, use the NikeID system to create and order your very own Cosplay costume.

I'm giddy that San Francisco's Proposition J Passed with an overwhelming 60% of the votes. Not familiar with Prop J? Here's an overview: It is the Policy of the people of the City and County of San Francisco to call for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney for violating the public trust and for knowingly harming the United States of America, the State of California, and the City and County of San Francisco. The full text is available for your review. Not sure what will come of it, but it's another giant step in the right direction.

A few blurry photos from Saturday night's amazing concert by The Knife. Easily the best concert I've seen all year.

With democrats reporting wins across the country, this is a good night my fellow robots!

Here's yet another reason why I love San Francisco:

A few photos from last night's Ladytron show at the El Rey.

PS: If you're unable to get tickets to Ladytron tonight, but still looking for an opportunity to get your haunt on, I suggest indulging in the robotic rock of Justice and MSTRKRFT at the Check Yo' Ponytail Halloween Blowout. It all goes down starting at 9pm at Safari Sams. Boo!

If you're looking for a good fright this Halloween, check out The Thirteen Scariest People in America.

Otherwise, I'll see you tonight at Ladytron's live performance of The Witching Hour at the El Rey theater. Happy Halloween!

James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem has teamed up with Nike to release 45:33: Nike+ Original Run, a 45-plus-minute track designed to accompany joggers on their workouts. Displaying Murphy's inimitable production style, the track has the dynamics and temporal ebb and flow of an eclectic DJ set, beginning with a long, warm-up segment, moving into a rousing Afrobeat crescendo, peaking with double-time disco, and finally coming back to earth on a parachute of cool, ambient synthesizers. The track is exclusively available from Apple's iTunes music store, though hopefully it might see a limited vinyl release from DFA, as well.

Continuing on what appears to be the week's trend, our favorite Berlin DJ and entrepreneur Ellen Allien has just launched a Fall/Winter fashion line, bringing her minimal sensibilities to women's clothes. Her line features heavy fabrics like leather combined with fine silk and feminine shapes. I'm particularly fond of her interpretation of the black cotton dress.

Seems like today is all about fashion...Diana Ng (our favorite nerdy fashion designer and contestant on Project Runway season 2) has recently co-created BlackBoxNation.com with Emily Albinski, a company dedicated to merging fashion with technology. We're looking forward to what BlackBoxNation turns out in the coming months.

Brand mashups are all the rage these days and are producing some interesting bedfellows. Case in point: one of my favorite fashion labels, Viktor + Rolf is stepping out into the world of affordibility thanks to their exclusive new collection done for global retailer H&M. The Viktor & Rolf for H&M line will be available as part of the launch of the new H&M Beverly Center location on November 9th, as well as select H&M locations around the world. You can get a sneak peek of the clothes on the H&M website.

The Russian music download site AllOfMP3.com broke tradition today to defend itself against allegations that its music downloading operation is illegal. While it's a fascinating study in international copyright law, what we found even more interesting is they plan to make all the music in their catalog downloadable for free with their new advertising supported model. I got a real chuckle over the name of their new client software that will be available soon for both Windows and Mac, it's called "Music for the Masses". I always suspected there were some Mode fans over at AllOfMP3.com, based on the comprehensive selection of Depeche Mode albums, compilations, singles and bootlegs. Now I'm certain.

Check out this brilliant new Sony ad for Bravia UK, they let 18,000 gallons of paint let loose in Glasgow. Make sure to watch the behind the scenes video, it wasn't CGI.

One of our favorite visual artists, James Clar has just launched the official James Clar + Associates Online Store, making available a selection of his most recognized designs as well as future productions. I'm particularly fond of the 3D Display Cube pictured above, which are available in the store for a mere $3000 each. Donations anyone?

At the Unravel (the SIGGRAPH2006 Fashion Show) Studio 5050 showed Day-for-Night: Modular Extensible Reconfigurable is a dress comprised of 436 white circuit boards that are linked together with metal rings. Each tile is addressable from a central control unit at the back of the dress. Solar cells are embedded on some of the tiles and charge the dress during the day. The dress is completely modular both in hardware, as new tile functionalities can be added and in terms of software. The control unit has an RF receiver module which can receive new programs from a programming USB board with an RF transmitter.

In what can only be described as a stroke of co-marketing genius, Ghostly International has announced a partnership with purveyor of exquisite design Moss to release an exclusive Ghostly compilation packaged as a digital memory device. The device will be emblazoned with the logos of both brands and will feature 14 tracks from across the Ghostly International roster. Brilliant! This will surely set the standard for other discriminating labels to follow. Watch the Moss Online website for details.

It still amazes me that people try and have books banned. The freedom to choose seems so innate that I usually take it for granted. The American Library Association received a total of 405 challenges last year. A challenge is defined as a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness. The 10 Most Challenged Books of 2005 were:

It's Perfectly Normal for homosexuality, nudity, sex education, religious viewpoint, abortion and being unsuited to age group;
Forever by Judy Blume for sexual content and offensive language;
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger for sexual content, offensive language and being unsuited to age group;
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier for sexual content and offensive language;
Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher for racism and offensive language;
Detour for Emmy by Marilyn Reynolds for sexual content;
What My Mother Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones for sexual content and being unsuited to age group;
Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey for anti-family content, being unsuited to age group and violence;
Crazy Lady! by Jane Leslie Conly for offensive language; and
It's So Amazing! A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families by Robie H. Harris for sex education and sexual content.

Richard Dawkins' new book The God Delusion is out. Here's a video clip of Dawkins discussing his book, and here's a presentation he recently gave at the TED conference.

Make your own custom cassette artwork at Says-it.com, and stay tuned for Robot Radio, coming this winter.

You've got just eleven months to prepare for the 2007 World Beard and Moustache Championships.

This clip of The Art Of Noise playing live is fantastic and is filmed with a gear pornographer's lustful eye-lots of slow pans across the vintage synths, even a long close up of the racks. And the band are dressed as Pierrot. And Paul Morley is sipping a glass of wine. And the audience are completely baffled. Can you think of a better way to start the weekend? [thanks Musicthing]

In case you were wondering, Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes of The Presets rocked Silverlake's Spaceland last night with a solid lineup of electro beats and sizzling lyrics.



I've uploaded a few more images to a Flickr set in case you want to check it out (or look for yourself in the crowd).

Anyone know where Anderson Cooper gets those great shirts with epaulettes? I think my fall wardrobe needs to be informed by a dash of foriegn war correspondent. Any leads? Let me know.

For all you out-of-towners who missed Banksy's Barely Legal exhibit, here's a quick flickr photoset I just uploaded. Enjoy!

MI RAI-RT, from AIBO's creator Tomoaki Kasugi is the latest robot ready for release upon Japan.

Without further hesitation, I give you Stallion: Master Magician.

I'm back from the Playa, another successful trip to Burning Man. I'm headed out of town again tonight so I don't have time to post much, but I'll give all you robots who were trapped in the default world the hilights. Aside from hanging out for a week with my brilliant, beautiful and uber talented friends, I saw some sights that were simply out-of-this-world:

I finally had a chance to meet, hang out with and see a performance by the legendary Dr. Megavolt. Yes, it was everything it was crackled up to be; an electrifying performance to say the least.

The huge Serpent Mother was amazing; photos do not do justice. It pulsed with fire and heat and was one of the most impressive displays I've seen at Burning Man.

And of course, there was the Waffle. I'm not sure what this immense structure was actually called, but it was dubbed The Waffle by attendees as a result of it's criss-crossed supports and it's Belgian creators. Truly impressive, plus it became a ginormous dance party once the sun went down.

More pictures soon, I promise! You can see a small subset of shots in this online album. Enjoy!

Our friend Karen at This is a Magazine recently sent announcement of their new 2-bit-good-for-nothing Issue compiled entirely from animated GIFs made or found by artists working in and around the internet today.

For no reason other than it just might be helpful to a few of you, how to disassemble a Sony Ericsson K600i phone and replace a cracked LCD screen.

Not one, not two but three mixes from Alexander Robotnick (complete with track listings) to get you in the mood for his appearances in San Francsico (8/12 RX Gallery), Los Angeles (8/16 Spider Club), NYC (8/17 Tribeca Grand).

Ultraluxx is free, this Saturday night at the Mountain Bar. More info.

After yesterday's announcement of a plot to blow up airplanes using liquid explosives and an iPod, the prospect of being able to use our favorite digital music player on future flights looks unlikely. iPods have always been dangerous though, as proven by Eight Ways to Kill Someone using an iPod Nano.

Domino starto!