Much of this country's geography is remote, and beyond the reach of cellphone coverage, making American satellites an ideal, if illegal, communications option. The problem goes back more than a decade, to the mid-1990s, when Brazilian radio technicians discovered they could jump on the UHF frequencies dedicated to satellites in the Navy's Fleet Satellite Communication system, or FLTSATCOM. They've been at it ever since.

In fact, everyone from truck drivers to drug dealers to soccer fans have hijacked the system to increase the range of their communications or coordinate operations. Because the practice is so widespread, eradicating it on the ground is probably not going to have a major impact. However, it does illustrate the woeful obsolescence of military satellite technology. [Wired]

The AP reports that at the Danilio Pinheiro prison in Sorocaba, Brazil, inmates were raising pigeons, having them smuggled out, strapped with packs on their legs containing cellphone parts and, in one instance, an entire cell charger. The pigeons' weakness? Food. Guards were able to lure them down from the high fences, and foil the dastardly schemes of the as-yet-unknown culprits.

It's a funny story, but it's not super hilarious when you learn that the cellphones are smuggled into prisons so that the imprisoned gang leaders can carry out horrific attacks on police and public transportation, as Sao Paolo's First Capital Command gang did in 2006, killing over 200 people.

So if you see a pigeon chilling on the prison wall, shoot first, and then frisk it for cell parts. [SF Gate/AP]

We are excited to partner with Zeebo on their visionary and ambitious global gaming initiative. The evolutionary combination of fast 3G wireless digital distribution and a simple yet elegant business model will open up new avenues to reach gamers directly with some of our top titles such as Street Fighter Alpha.

That corpospeak blurb is from Takeshi Tezuka, general manager of Mobile Contents Development at Capcom. Color me surprised. And Namco and THQ are also publishing titles. Apparently, the idea of distributing games easily—via the free 3G connection of the Zeebo—to millions of poor kids in emerging countries is an attractive proposition for these powerhouses.

I'm all for it. [Crunchgear]

Each of the six hammer drills is linked keys on the main body's keyboard. When a key is pressed, it causes the drills to start operating, producing a terrible calamitous sound. The keyboard is sensitive to pressure, so pressing down harder causes the bit to drill faster. Like so:

It's like the world's most aggressive piano ever. [Makezine]

The haven't gotten away with it, however, as Brazil has been trying to crack down on illegal logging. Now there are 107 companies being sued for $833 million. In addition, 202 people are facing prosecution, including 30 "ringleaders" who brought the hackers and logging companies together.

Essentially what they did was falsify transportation permits. The Brazilian system is set up so that companies receive permits to transport their felled trees. The load is measured and that amount of wood is deducted from the total amount allowed. Once a company reaches its quota, it can’t get more permits and therefore can’t make more money by cutting down trees. However, hiring hackers got them around the system for long enough to do some big illegal damage.

We'll see if anything actually happens in court to stop this practice. [Greenpeace via Treehugger]

In addition to the hefty $15,000 price tag, this door boasts a biometric sensor that serves as the lock. Oh, and lots of carbon fiber. Did we mention it's made of carbon fiber? There was, sadly, no word on what this door was protecting. An underground secret lair, perhaps?

Anyway, we sincerely hope the wealthy Brazilian businessman who commissioned this piece gets his money's worth, because this sucker would do nicely as the door to the next Gizmodo Gallery, don't you think? [Carbon Fiber Gear]

While he does have a point—we haven't gotten to the point where cloud computing can take over traditional software—is it really as far away a possibility as he makes it seem? Microsoft already missed the internet search revolution, will it miss the next big thing too? [Portal Exame]

Clearly we've been seeing changes in the ocean circulation in the Southern Hemisphere. The question for the future, and we don't have an answer yet, is how is that going to shift against the backdrop of climate change?

The story here, however, is that the Brazilian Air Force is going to be flying the penguins back to South Atlantic, possibly in freezing chambers onboard cargo airplanes. Oh yes, and they are so cute that I'm about to have a diabetes arrest.

[Daily Mail]

How to do a perfect caipirinha

Ingredients
• Cachaça (brazilian sugar cane liquor)
• Cane sugar
• Limes
• Finely crushed ice

Instructions
• Get a glass, preferably one with a wide diameter and short (but I made them large myself)
• Cut one full lime into eight sections.
• Put the lime in the glass and cover with sugar (you can add more sugar later if it's too strong for you)
• With a wood pestle (you can also use a metal one or any other instrument) mash the limes with the sugar until the juice and the sugar create a syrup.
• Add the crushed ice until you top the glass (I crush it by hand, in a cloth)
• Fill with cachaça to the top.
• Stirred well with a spoon until the whole thing is mixed (if you have a cocktail steel glass, you can also shake it).
• Taste and see if you need more sugar (add and mix again if needed).

Enjoy one of the most delicious drinks in the world, perfect for a hot Sunday (which it is, here in my apartment in New York).

The Associação Brasileira das Empresas de Software (the Brazilian equivalent of the Business Software Association) sued the administrators of Stand Center—a shopping mall in Sao Paulo—and 17 of the retailers in there for seven brazillions (four billion US dollars). The sum was calculated by getting 103 products, adding the total value and multiplying it by 3,000, then putting that together with the individual street price of the 71,000 products that were seized during the police operation that lead to this court case.

For sure, crime doesn't pay. But with those outrageous quantities, fining won't either. [IDG NOW— Thanks Ariel]

His body was found yesterday by the Anna Gabriela, a tug working for Brazilian oil company Petrobras, 683 miles (1,100 kilometers) from Father De Carli's starting point. His trip started on April 20 after a mass, and his last contact was a desperate attempt to learn how to use his GPS and communicate his position as the wind took him deep into the Atlantic Ocean.

I need to contact someone who can teach me how to operate this GPS, so I can give the latitude and longitude coordinates, which is the only way that people on the ground can know where I am.

An Petrobras official spokesman said that "his clothes and shoes indicate that it's him." And now I don't know if I should say "Godspeed, Padre" or "this is another candidate for the Darwin Awards," so I would just say rest in peace.

[Editor's Note: I commend you for finding your way out of this world while trying to do some good for the rest of it. Rest in Peace, De Carli. -B.L.] [Bloomberg]

- A reinvention of the TiVo box that doesn't associate so strongly with cable and broadcast TV.
- BlackBerry to know we mean them no harm and to actually work with blogs.
- For writers around the world and at Giz to stop picking on Motorola and Microsoft without due cause. I mean, the RAZR is a decent phone, even it's not in style anymore. And Bill Gates is curing the malaria epidemic! I guess OLPC needs a reprieve, too. But not as much as Microsoft.
- Apple iPhone, three fricking words for you: Cut, Copy, Paste. And reception. And Video. (That's 7, I guess.)
- True unlimited plans for international data roaming from cellphone carriers. They could just trade credit instead of gouging each other and passing the price rape onto travelers.
- Cable to go a la carte or die. Glad all the really good TV is available on IP anyhow.
- The new 3G iPhone's power management to be smart enough to turn off HSDPA during simple email DLs.
- I like the Apple TV's ability to transfer purchases and rentals to my iPhone and laptop; wish it played DivX.
- Really, really, really kick-ass Android implementations that have major differences in software. And not just stores to sell apps/ringtones/games/wallpapers, you greedy carrier son of a bitches.
- Mac support for the really well-made Zune hardware/firmware/software.
- Waterproof/rugged/outdoor cameras with appropriately beefy straps.
- Firefly Season 2?
- Microsoft's E&D culture and process spreading through the company!
- To be cast as an extra in some nerdy movie or show. I'll be an ensign, or one of the Others! Or a guest appearance in a Pogue video. They're so good!
- Wired blogs to get their own URLs.
- Palm to do a really cool consumer OS they can brag about.
- Windows Vista: XP Edition. (Made with not more code, but with a Machete)
- Engadget links to Giz.
- Psystar to magically get their shit together (technically and legally) and make a good run at the alternative Mac market.
- For the winter: A bountiful snow season come next winter and a 2009 bi-turbo Audi S4 with the 4 wheel vector Quattro system. Snow plow! And a lib tech Banana snowboard.
- Wii Fit to acknowledge that I am not overweight, I just have big legs.
- Apple Keynote secrets that stay secret until their proper unveiling.
- For peace between Giz and CEA. (Lots of entertaining questions about the prank coming from the Brazilian press on this trip.)
- Proper swimming lessons.

I think my list was a lot longer last year, but I think that after almost drowning today, I'm just glad to be breathing, glad to have great readers like you all, smart and entertaining writers and a job I like enough to engage in on my day off. And hey, I'm on a beach in Brazil, so it's hard to think about tech. Life ain't bad.

The first flight took him from the Brazilian town of Ampére to San Antonio, in Argentina, complete with tin foil pants and a DIY seat. He landed without any incident, getting rid of the balloons to lose altitude until he reached the ground.

The second flight isn't finished yet. Or at least, not officially. This time he had with him a GPS unit, which he planned to use to relay his coordinates to the ground.

There was only one problem: he didn't know how to use it correctly. Padre Adelir de Carli took off after a special mass last Sunday, at 1PM. The weather was bad, but he didn't care. He wanted to fly again, this time to beat the record of flight distance with party balloons. And besides, he was sure his new GPS was going to provide him with some safety, a way to ask for help with his precise location in the case anything went wrong.

The plan didn't work out. The strong winds took him 31 miles into the sea, and a little bit later, frustrated, he requested help from people on the ground:

I need to contact someone who can teach me how to operate this GPS, so I can give the latitude and longitude coordinates, which is the only way that people on the ground can know where I am.

Sadly, nobody was able to explain to him how to do it correctly and, around 9PM—the time of his last contact—he disappeared. After a two-day search using military police helicopters, and the cooperation of local fishing boats, it seems Father de Carli's flying dreams are not going to have a happy ending. The last thing that people found were fragments of balloons, next to the beaches of Santa Catarina.

I'm sure some people will call him an idiot for not learning how to use the GPS first, but what is more interesting in this story is asking how technology could still be so difficult to use. Is it really necessary to read an instruction manual or get directions to operate a gadget? The answer is simple: It doesn't have to be.

I'm supposed to be a "technology expert," dealing all day long with gadgets, but I still find plenty of devices that are a complete user interface nightmare. Things that require instruction manuals when there are no excuses anymore to design clear, straightforward interfaces that can be accessed by people with zero experience in technology.

I see this sad event, which has ended in the tragedy of a missing person—obviously he's a bit crazy and this is all his fault—as an example of all that is wrong with the design of machines today. Not because technology itself was the cause of him getting lost—it wasn't. It was more bad luck and bad planning than anything else. After all, his first flight was a success without GPS, and men have been wandering through Earth without any help for thousands of years.

The problem here is that I can imagine his frustration, trying to make sense of an infernal device so he could tell people his exact location, all the while knowing that he was going to get lost forever in the immensity of the sea.

And while we don't put ourselves in these crazy life or death situations every day, it wouldn't be bad if manufacturers actually invested some money and intelligence in making technology truly accessible. Not just a bunch of circuits and software tied together with extremely badly-designed UIs that merely alienate the user, but devices that can actually help people and make their experiences enjoyable.

Until then, I'm afraid we will have to live with thousands of useless gadgets that not men, and neither God will ever truly understand. [G1 and G1]

A reader of our friends at Brazilian creativity blog Brainstorm9 got his prize and sent them the photos of the fake popsicle/package, designed to fool consumers and make the iPod sustain the sub-zero temperatures and the humidity of a freezer. The fake popsicle, which you can only see when you open the external packaging, was approved by Apple in Cupertino to guarantee that the shuffle didn't get damaged. If shows the following tag:

Not very lickable, but hey, it's a free iPod! Here's what it says:

Contratulations You won an iPod shuffle from the iPod on a stick Kibon promotion. To ask for your headphones, charging dock and manual with warranty, call 0800 707 1315, give your information and the serial number of your iPod shuffle. It's very important that you save this popsicle to show when you receive the complements. Expires on August 31 2008. Limited edition.

And then adds, "Don't eat." No kidding. Fortunately, they send you a real popsicle along with the iPod complements. And failing that, you can always use strawberry syrup. [Brainstorm9]

Bullet Brazil is the company that developed the idea for Unilever's Kibon, which is the Brazilian equivalent of the Good Humor ice cream brand. They started to think about it back in March with the objective of putting the shuffles directly in the hands of the prize-winner. "It works like this: the consumer buys an Fruttare popsicle which comes in 10 different fruit flavors," Neto told us, "and may find an iPod Shuffle inside the package," ready to play.

However, since people would be able to tell that an iPod is inside by looking at the package itself, they had to find an alternative. The popsicles with prize inside had to be exactly the same as the regular popsicles. The obvious solution was putting the shuffles inside a real popsicle, but this was ruled out as the humidity would have destroyed the shuffle in no time, even with plastic around it. The other idea: a fake ice cream that looked exactly like the real thing. "We developed a special prototype that emulates the real ice cream;" Neto says, "it protects the iPod from humidity, and it feels like the real ice cream. It is virtually impossible to fell the difference without opening the package." Their testing proved successful.

Apple was not convinced about it, however. As we know, Cupertino is extremely concerned about their image and they couldn't afford faulty iPods falling into the hands of consumers. Even if the propsicle could protect the iPod against humidity, Infinite Loop still had to check if the special fake ice cream could protect the electronic circuitry against temperatures between -4 and -22 degrees Fahrenheit (-20 and -30 degrees Celsius), which is the normal temperature range of a standard freezer. After a never-ending number of tests, they saw it worked and Apple gave the go-ahead from California.

With the iPod ready to go, the only question left was how to get the charger and the manual. They solved it by providing a 800 number and a code to the winners. And the final touch: they will get a real popsicle in the package, same flavor as the fake one.

Now everything is ready for Kivon's "iPod no palito" summer promotion starting on December 18, except us: yes, it is summer in Brazil now and we are all freezing up here. Screw Vegas. I say let's all go and cover CES from Fernando de Noronha. [Bullet via Brainstorm#9 - Muito obrigado, Neto and Carlos]

It's not the kind of crack your average teenage boy dreams about in his bedroom, is it? Aguinaldo was taken to the hospital, but is expected to be out today as his injuries are not thought to be too serious. Up until yesterday's incident, it was thought that lightning preferred iPods to other gadgets. [Globo.com - thanks, Andre]

Bullet Doesn't Stop MacBook Pro [Cult of Mac]