Going to Beijing for the upcoming Olympic games? Well, if you weren’t aware, China is not a democracy. Their nation-wide firewall leaves access to certain websites blocked, dulling your internet experience. No worries, thanks to Germany’s Chaos Computer Club’s USB dongle dubbed The Freedom Stick. For just $30, this device is preloaded with software which will secure your connection, routing traffic around the world through anonymous computers. The commies will never know what hit ‘em.

The stick will only be available during the games, which hopefully won’t piss the Chinese government off too much.  It’s not made of LEGOs and it’s not a Bluetooth adapter, but it’ll be more productive at a fraction of the price.  Be warned: if you find yourself in a Chinese prison for messing with their networks, the Chaos Computer Club will not bail you out and neither will your own government.

Link (via)

PacketWars had its own project going on the expo floor. Complete with a referee who was ready to smack any hacker who steps out of the line with any shenanigans that violate the terms of service. It’s competitive network combat, no holds barred. Bring your own laptop, plug in and defend your territory.

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Step aside, Second Life. There’s a new time-wasting virtual social network just released by Google. It’s called Lively and it’s your ticket to the cyber world, complete with emotes and customized avatars. Screw that pay to play bullshit on Second Life. Hell, no one wants to hear your lame cyber concert anyways. Play on a real stage or go home!

Lively’s client is free to download and runs with IE or Firefox. Images and videos are viewable in Lively, as well as the ability to embed websites, like your Tumblr or other blogs into your Lively “living space.” Though the content isn’t quite there on Lively (lacking an economy like that of Second Life), it’s still free to play and you’ll feel less dorky playing it than you would with Second Life. Give it a try and let us know how it is.

Link (via)

 

Japan’s largest mobile operator NTT DoCoMo announced this morning that for the first time in the world, they have managed a 100% population 3G coverage with their WCDMA network. The last 2 villages with reception towers installed are both in Okinawa, where they don’t even speak proper Japanese. The towers will be powered up on Mar28. Take note that this is only population coverage but not area coverage, but you can expect that there’ll be 3G signals as long as there is a village. (We have no way to assess DoCoMo’s definition of a “village”) The company will continue to expand their coverage area (in rural areas) with the new 1.7Ghz band that they obtained from the government, on top of the ongoing HSDPA upgrading. You can call NTT obsessive for building towers in places where nobody uses cellphones anyway, but don’t forget that a lot of so-called developed countries don’t even have a satisfactory 2G coverage, cough ATT cough Vodafone. –Sam Chan

Press release [NTT DoCoMo]

One of the reasons of choosing a cellphone operator over another would be coverage, but no matter how good the network is there are always blind spots, this is especially true when you are 3G users (higher frequency lower diffraction), out of the city center, or even in your own room sometimes. NTT DoCoMo has got it figured out and started selling this box-like household antenna for you to put next to the window, dragging a 3.5 meters long cable and attach to your phone. There should be no chance of missing any calls anymore, if you are a frequent mobile internet user, this would speed things up a bit too. The model itself measures 10×10x4cm and weighs just under 300 grams. The best part is that the suggested retail price is only 25USD so you should seriously consider picking up one of these if you live in Japan and are users of the latest 903i/703i series. The antenna can take signals from the usual 2Ghz as well as the 1.7Ghz FOMA-plus area coverage at the suburb. For users with older phones including the PDC ones, you can pick up some of the older and less attractive models. –Sam Chan

Accessories [NTT DoCoMo]