London’s entire Boris bike fleet will soon have laser lights

Boris bikes have never been London’s trendiest mode of public transportation, although they picked up some much-needed style points earlier this year thanks to a laser-projected light system. At the time it was limited to 250 two-wheelers, but today Transport for London (TfL) has announced the trial will be expanded to all 11,500 Santander bicycles in early 2016. The Blaze Laserlight projects a green version of the standard cyclist symbol six meters in front of the rider, making them visible to pedestrians and traffic looking to pull out onto the road up ahead.

The new lights will be installed directly onto the frame of the bike and come on automatically at night, ensuring no energy is wasted during London’s daylight hours. Santander is footing most of the bill — roughly £768,000 of the £860,000 — with the rest coming out of TfL’s Cycle Hire Operational budget. London’s roads can be dangerous for cyclists, especially in the heart of the city where traffic is most congested, so any additional lighting should be a boon to pedal-power enthusiasts.

Source: TfL

Sky to turn porn filters on for all new broadband customers

Soon, Sky’s home broadband will come with its adult content blocker switched on by default. From the moment a new package is “activated,” subscribers will find that the company’s Broadband Shield is switched on with child-friendly settings. That means only websites suitable for 13-year-olds or younger before 9pm, followed by anything under its 18-rating thereafter. To change or turn off these settings, you’ll need to dive into your MySky account and set your preference.

It’s the final step that changes Sky’s Broadband Shield into an opt-out service. The company has been toying with the idea since last January, when it sent an email to all of its customers who hadn’t yet made a decision about the service. It was an obligatory choice, because Sky automatically enabled the service for anyone that ignored it. So if you didn’t opt out, you were bundled in by default. Sky says it will repeat this process for all Sky Broadband customers that have joined since November 2013, when Broadband Shield was launched, and haven’t turned it on. Presumably, that includes the people that expressly said they didn’t want the filter blocking certain sites and content.

Parental controls, commonly referred to as porn filters, are pretty unpopular in the UK. The latest research by Ofcom shows that only 14 percent of TalkTalk, 12 percent of Virgin Media and 6 percent of BT customers currently have them enabled. That figure jumps to somewhere between 30 and 40 percent for Sky, which isn’t surprising given the lengths the company has gone to encourage adoption.

The company says it’s switching the service on by default to make it “as easy as possible” for families to protect themselves from the darker corners of the web. “The simplest thing we can do to help them is to automatically turn on filtering and then allow customers to easily choose and change their settings,” Lyssa McGowan, Director of Communications Products for Sky said. “This means they can have complete peace of mind that they will protected online from the word go.”

The NSPCC has also supported the move, calling it a “no-brainer.”

Sky hasn’t stated exactly when the initiative will come into effect; it’s merely given an ambiguous “2016” timeframe. Ultimately, its Broadband Shield will still be an optional service which you can switch off at any time. For some users though, especially those who said they didn’t want it last time, it’ll simply be an annoyance to specify that they’re quite happy with full access to the world wide web.

Source: Sky

Web status code tells you when sites are censored

With a few exceptions, web status codes are meant to indicate errors. A 404 page shows up when you tried to reach content that wasn’t found, for example. However, there’s now a code for those times when that absence is all too intentional. The newly published 451 code (a nod to Fahrenheit 451, naturally) lets site hosts and network providers warn you when censorship and similar “legal obstacles” prevent you from seeing web material. In theory, this gives you a much better explanation than the generic 403 “forbidden” code — and a not-so-subtle hint that you need to jump through hoops to get the truth.

Whether or not it actually works is another story. After all, a censorship-happy country could go one step further and block 451 codes so that there’s no direct confirmation of shady behavior. You could still put two and two together, but the message may be most useful in freer nations where content bans are more likely to be the exception than the rule.

[Image credit: Alexander Koerner/Getty Images]

Via: Mnot’s Blog

Source: IETF

Court says ridesharing for flights is illegal

If you had hopes that the FAA’s ban on ridesharing flights would be reversed… well, you’re in for a disappointment. A Washington, DC court has ruled that pilots need commercial licenses for these services to work. You’re a carrier in that case, not just splitting expenses like the plaintiff (Flytenow) claimed — and that means you need the “experience and credentials” to ferry passengers. If you want to fly cross-country without resorting to big airlines, you’ll have to either charter a private flight or hope that a pilot friend will take you.

[Image credit: Gordon Chibroski/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images]

Source: Bloomberg