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The Media

Inside the AP's Plan To Security-Wrap Its News Content 138

Posted by timothy from the one-of-the-greatest-diagrams-ever dept.
suraj.sun writes with an excerpt from this story at Ars Technica that the "Associated Press, reeling from the newspaper apocalypse, has a new plan to 'wrap' and 'protect' its content though a 'digital permissions framework.' The Associated Press last week rolled out its brave new plan to 'apply protective format to news.' The AP's news registry will 'tag and track all AP content online to assure compliance with terms of use,' and it will provide a 'platform for protect, point, and pay.' That's a lot of 'p'-prefaced jargon, but it boils down to a sort of DRM for news — 'enforcement,' in AP-speak."
First Person Shooters (Games)

Submission + - Duke Nukem Developer Shuts Down (tomshardware.com)

Submitted by
PLSQL Guy
PLSQL Guy writes: "Duke Nukem Forever developer 3D Realms is shutting down, according to Shacknews, who cites 'a reliable source close to the company' who said the developer, along with the recently resurrected Apogee name, is finished and employees from both have already been let go. It looks like all of the Duke Nukem Forever jokes are turning into reality- it looks like DNF might turn out to be the ultimate vaporware after all."
Technology

MIT Researchers Fight Gridlock with Linux 75

Posted by Soulskill from the open-roads-with-open-source dept.
nerdyH brings us a report about a Linux-based device being developed at MIT which aims to reduce traffic congestion as well as assist automotive research projects. "The current focus of the project is in developing algorithms that run on top of the portal application to help drivers plot the best route at a given time. For example, the team's MyRoute project includes applications that model delays observed on road segments as statistical distributions. Various algorithms then use these to compute optimal routes for different times of the day. 'Instead of asking the shortest time or shortest distance from point A to point B, you ask what route should be taken, say, for the highest probability of getting to the airport by a certain time depending on the time selected,' says Madden."
Science

Dinosaur Fossil Found With Preserved Soft Tissue 248

Posted by CmdrTaco from the begun-the-clone-wars-have dept.
damn_registrars writes "A fossilized hadrosaur has been uncovered in South Dakota that has preserved soft tissue. This is described as a "mummified" dinosaur, and allows for a look at the skin and musculature of some parts of this animal. The find was reported by a 24 year old Yale graduate student of paleontology."

Comment Hidden Content (Score 2, Interesting) 188

by KingEomer (#21455599) Attached to: MPAA College Toolkit Raises Privacy, Security Concerns
http://universitytoolkit.com/ (mentioned in the pdf) seems to have some hidden content. The page displays a link to: http://universitytoolkit.com/MPAA_University_Toolkit_Admin_Guide.pdf. If you look at the source, you can notice a link at the bottom which isn't displayed: MPAA_University_Toolkit_Administrators_Guide.pdf (it's a relative link in the source).

This version is slightly longer, with what looks like a section detailing development goals. Can anyone see anything incriminating there?
Mandriva

Nigerian Government Nixes Microsoft's Mandriva Block 327

Posted by Zonk from the money-well-spent dept.
An anonymous reader writes "After trying to bribe a local supplier with a $400,000 marketing contract, Microsoft has still apparently lost out in trying to woo Nigeria's government to use Windows over Linux. Microsoft threw the money at the supplier after it chose Mandriva Linux for 17,000 laptops for school children across Nigeria. The supplier took the bait and agreed to wipe Mandriva off the machines, but now Nigeria's government has stepped in to stop the dirty deal."
Portables

The Dying PC Market 307

Posted by CmdrTaco from the netcraft-confirms-nothing dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The PC's role in Japanese homes is diminishing, as its once-awesome monopoly on processing power is encroached by gadgets such as smart phones that act like pocket-size computers, advanced Internet-connected game consoles, digital video recorders with terabytes of memory NEC's annual PC shipments in Japan shrank 6.2 percent to 2.72 million units in 2006, and the trend is continuing into the first quarter of fiscal 2007 with a 14 percent decline from a year earlier. Sony's PC shipments for Japan shrank 10 percent in 2006 from a year earlier. "The household PC market is losing momentum to other electronics like flat-panel TVs and mobile phones," said Masahiro Katayama, research group head at market survey firm IDC. "Consumers aren't impressed anymore with bigger hard drives or faster processors. That's not as exciting as a bigger TV," Katayama said. "And in Japan, kids now grow up using mobile phones, not PCs. The future of PCs isn't bright.""
Power

Pentagon Urges Space-Based Solar Power 552

Posted by kdawson from the let-the-beam-me-down-jokes-begin dept.
eldavojohn writes "The Pentagon issued a report indicating that space-based solar power 'has the potential to help the United States stave off climate change and avoid future conflicts over oil by harnessing the Sun's power to provide an essentially inexhaustible supply of clean energy.' The report, from the Pentagon's National Security Space Office, calls for funding the development of space-based solar power culminating in 'a platform in geosynchronous orbit bigger than the international space station and capable of beaming 5-10 megawatts of power to a receiving station on the ground.' The Pentagon's interest in such an effort stems from the need to acquire energy on the battlefield, which today often comes at a painful premium."
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - 40GB PS3 will NOT be backwards compatible! (computerandvideogames.com) 2

Submitted by
gevmage
gevmage writes: "An article on computerandvideogames.com says that the 40GB version of the PlayStation 3 console, which will supplant the 60GB version (at least in Europe) will not be backwards compatible. From the article: 'In a new eye-opener from Sony the company's revealed that it's to drop backwards-compatibility support in PlayStation products.'

Personally, I think that Sony's generally good attitudes about backwards compatibility has been one reason that I own a PlayStation 2. If they dump that completely, then I may go Wii shopping."
Education

UK Schools Will Fight Cyberbullying 273

Posted by kdawson from the spreading-in-loco-parentis dept.
Plutonite writes "The BBC is running a story on UK schools being told by the education minister to fight cyberbullying, by which they mean bullying with the aid of (network-based) technology. Schools have been told to confiscate mobile phones, and, more controversially, to investigate and get material removed from personal social-networking sites. Are schools supposed to be doing this as an extension of their duty to prevent physical bullying in school, or is this is yet another example of governmental intervention where it is not due? Should kids be brought up knowing that their life on the web is being documented and controlled by people other than their parents?"
Math

A Mathematical Answer To the Parallel Universe Question 566

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the evil-twins-always-have-a-goatee dept.
diewlasing writes to mention that Oxford scientists have proffered a mathematical answer to the parallel universe question that is gaining some support in the scientific community. "According to quantum mechanics, unobserved particles are described by 'wave functions' representing a set of multiple 'probable' states. When an observer makes a measurement, the particle then settles down into one of these multiple options. The Oxford team, led by Dr. David Deutsch, showed mathematically that the bush-like branching structure created by the universe splitting into parallel versions of itself can explain the probabilistic nature of quantum outcomes."
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - Has copyright gone too far? RMS' views

Submitted by
holdenkarau
holdenkarau writes: "Richard M. Stallman (RMS) recently gave a talk entitled Copyright vs Community in the Age of Computer Networks to the University of Waterloo Computer Science Club. The talk looks at the origin of copyright, and how it has evolved overtime from something that originally served the benefit of the people to a tool used against them and answers the question of how copyright has gone to far, and how to fix it. In keeping with RMS' desire to use open formats, the talk and qa session are only available in ogg theora."
Music

Submission + - How do we solve the copyright/piracy problem?

Submitted by Archaelicos
Archaelicos writes: I'm a second year law student working on my law review note (it's a "short" article, basically) and my subject is probably going to be copyright law regarding entertainment media in a digital environment where old solutions have failed. The industry grudgingly gave up the fight over VCRs and cassettes after they were able to require royalty payments on blank tapes to compensate them for future piracy, and a combination of energy barriers and limited social access prevented most people from mass-producing thousands of copies and trading them. That's all changed. You can't reasonably charge royalties on the sale of all storage media, our social access is now the entire planet, and the energy barrier is literally the push of a button. Piracy is a real legitimate problem for the industry, but their answer has been, shall we say, unenlightened, and the pirates are committed to the fight. Ignorance runs wild on all sides. The industry drops millions on copy protection schemes that are cracked within days. Internet users complain that the DMCA criminalizes fair use (it is evil legislation, but this belief isn't accurate; see, e.g., Lexmark v. SCC, 387 F.3d 522, 561 (6th Cir. 2004) ("[T]he DMCA explicitly leaves the defenses to copyright infringement, including the fair use doctrine, unaltered.")). iTunes is obviously a smashing hit, yet piracy continues unabated. Are there any solutions? REAL solutions, not "fsck the RIAA" solutions? Do the laws cast too wide a net? I'm hoping to see some insightful, thoughtful comments (on Slashdot, even, yes!) that I could quote in my note. I haven't decided what "side" of this I'm on, I'm going to let my research decide. I am especially interested in any legitimate studies done of the industry, its profit model, piracy, its impact on the bottom line, and so forth, so if anybody knows of that data, or even news articles that are critical, post them! You might have the dubious distinction of being immortalized in a legal journal. If this little experiment is success I'll try to post another story when the note is published letting you know where to find it.
Communications

Submission + - Richard Stallman talks on Copyright V. The People 5

Submitted by
holden
holden writes: "Richard M. Stallman recently gave a talk entitled Copyright vs Community in the Age of Computer Networks to the University of Waterloo Computer Science Club. The talk looks at the origin of copyright, and how it has evolved overtime from something that originally served the benefit of the people to a tool used against them. In keeping with his wishes to use open formats, the talk and qa are available in ogg theora only."

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