szyzyg writes "I've created some popular science videos showing how asteroid discoveries have happened over the last few decades. However I've run into a problem with a religious organization which borrowed my video and redubbed it to promote their religious message. Ultimately I filed a DMCA takedown request via YouTube's site, it's as easy as filling in a form and the video was removed. But this organization has since submitted a counterclaim claiming 'under penalty of perjury' that they do in fact have the rights to this work, and YouTube has reinstated the video. It looks like the only way I can pursue this further is to spend the money to take the organization to court and get an injunction, but even if I did so I'd have to pay court costs up front and since they're based in another country I'd have a difficult time actually collecting any money from the other party. It feels like this other group is simply gambling that I won't spend the time and resources to take further legal action, the DMCA is supposed to provide equal protection but the more lawyer you have the more 'equal' you are. So does anyone have any suggestions for how I should proceed here?"

On Friday, we posted about Kickstarter's new rules of engagement, including some new rules under which some of the most popular Kickstarter projects to date might never have surfaced. But what about ones that make it to the site, then disappear? Wired takes a look at what happens to those Kickstarter projects that for one reason or another get yanked from the site. (DMCA complaints apparently are often that one reason.)

bs0d3 writes "Alex Arnold from the Pirate Party Switzerland has been elected mayor of Eichberg. This is the first mayoral win for the pirates in Switzerland, and hopefully just the begining of things to come. Thomas Bruderer, president of the Pirate Party Switzerland, is delighted: 'This result is for our young party is an important milestone. To win a majority vote shows that our members are not just a marginal phenomenon; but are in the midst of society.'"

Rick Zeman writes "The New York Times has extensively surveyed and analyzed data center power usage and patterns. At their behest, the consulting firm McKinsey & Company analyzed energy use by data centers and found that, on average they were using only 6 percent to 12 percent of the electricity powering their servers to perform computations. The rest was essentially used to keep servers idling and ready in case of a surge in activity that could slow or crash their operations. 'Worldwide, the digital warehouses use about 30 billion watts of electricity, roughly equivalent to the output of 30 nuclear power plants.' In other words, 'A single data center can take more power than a medium-size town.' This is the price being paid to ensure everyone has instant access to every email they've ever received, or for their instant Facebook status update. Data Center providers are finding that they can't rack servers fast enough to provide for users' needs: A few companies say they are using extensively re-engineered software and cooling systems to decrease wasted power. Among them are Facebook and Google, which also have redesigned their hardware. Still, according to recent disclosures, Google's data centers consume nearly 300 million watts and Facebook's about 60 million watts. Many of these solutions are readily available, but in a risk-averse industry, most companies have been reluctant to make wholesale change, according to industry experts."

tetrahedrassface writes "The first city in the U.S. to offer a screaming fast fiber network has now announced customers will get a free 60% boost in speed. If you had the 30 MB/sec service you now will get 50. Mid-range customers get a doubling for free, while the high end consumers of fiber get an average 250% boost. The fiber network recently passed 40,000 members and judging from a test of my business, we are currently over 300 MB/sec." What's the fastest service actually available where you live, and what does it cost?

First time accepted submitter oldlurker writes "After much discussion where many hoped a voluntary Do Not Track standard was agreed with advertisers, it turns out the advertisers already had a very different interpretation than most of us on how to practice it: 'Two big associations, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Digital Advertising Alliance, represent 90% of advertisers. Downey says those big groups have devised their own interpretation of Do Not Track. When the servers controlled by those big companies encounter a DNT=1 header, says Downey, "They have said they will stop serving targeted ads but will still collect and store and monetize data."'"

Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that Tom Welton, a professor of sustainable chemistry at Imperial College, London, believes that a global shortage of helium means it should be used more carefully — and since helium cools the large magnets inside MRI scanners it is wrong to use it for balloons used at children's parties. 'We're not going to run out of helium tomorrow — but on the 30 to 50 year timescale we will have serious problems of having to shut things down if we don't do something in the meantime,' says Welton. 'When you see that we're literally just letting it float into the air, and then out into space inside those helium balloons, it's just hugely frustrating. It is absolutely the wrong use of helium.' Two years ago, the shortage of helium prompted American Nobel Prize winner Robert Richardson to speak out about the huge amounts of helium wasted every day because the gas is kept artificially cheap by the U.S. government and to call for a dramatic increase in helium's price. But John Lee, chairman of the UK's Balloon Association, insists that the helium its members put into balloons is not depriving the medical profession of the gas. 'The helium we use is not pure,' says Lee. 'It's recycled from the gas which is used in the medical industry, and mixed with air. We call it balloon gas rather than helium for that reason.'"

symbolset writes "NTT and some partners, in a late paper to the ECOC 2012, show a successful transmission of 1 petabit per second data transfer over a 12-core optical fiber 52.4 km long." How long that transfer speed would take to transfer one Library of Congress's worth of data all depends on who you ask.

WebMink writes "With an impending deadline for America's schools to satisfy new federal reporting requirements on academic achievement, a new alliance of state educators is creating a system of open source software to help schools gather and submit the data that the rules require. To get the whole thing started, the Gates Foundation and Carnegie are funding two $75,000 awards for the open source developers who create the in-school software. The winners could also become the linchpins of a new industry in academic software."

New submitter juenger1701 writes "Xbian's developer Koenkk has posted a reply to the code stealing accusations mentioned here Friday." In response, Sam Nazarko of Raspbmc has replaced his earlier complaint, "on the agreement that XBian participate with compliance of the GPL." Koenkk makes the case that his project has always complied with the GPL.

An anonymous reader writes "iOS 6 has seen rapid adoption among iPhone and iPad users, reports developer David Smith. Smith's applications like Audiobooks get around 100k downloads weekly and he's taken to mapping the adoption of Apple's software releases over the last couple of years. This update's data shows a 35.4% adoption of iOS 6, with iOS 5.x holding court at 71.5% adoption. That's a pretty rapid pace, eclipsing Android Jelly Bean's 2-month adoption levels of 1.2% easily."

First time accepted submitter FredAndrews writes "A Private User Agent W3C Community Group has been proposed to tackle the privacy of the web browser by developing technical solutions to close the leaks. Current Javascript APIs are capable of leaking a lot of information as we browse the Internet, such as details of our browser that can be used to identify and track our online presence, and the content on the page (including any private customizations and the effects of extensions), and can monitor and leak our usage on the page such a mouse movements and interactions on the page. This problem is compounded by the increased use of the web browser as a platform for delivering software. While the community ignores the issue, solutions are being developed commercially and patented — we run the risk of ending up unable to have privacy because the solutions are patented. The proposed W3C PUA CG proposes to address the problem with technical solutions at the web browser, such as restricting the back channels available to Javascript, and also by proposing HTML extensions to mitigate lost functionality. Note, this work cannot address the privacy of information that we overtly share, and there are other current W3C initiatives working on this, such as DNT."

New submitter ferrisoxide.com writes "In Victoria (Australia), detailed information about electricity customers' power usage, which gives insights into when a house is occupied, is being shared with third parties including mail houses, debt collectors, data processing analysts and government agencies."

dburr writes "If This Then That (IFTTT) is a web mashup service that lets you connect together multiple services in unique and powerful ways. For example, you can automatically bookmark Favorited tweets using a social bookmarking service such as Delicious. Or even notify you by SMS when your server goes down. Unfortunately, Twitter has just announced policy changes that will in effect neuter it. Starting next Thursday, August 27, IFTTT will be disabling all Twitter "triggers" (the real power of IFTTT and its defining feature). (You will still be able to post Tweets through IFTTT) This has upset many long time Twitter users and members of the technorati. I have created a petition in a valiant (and perhaps vain) attempt to express our displeasure at their decision."