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Censorship

Blogger.com Banned In Turkey 262

Posted by timothy from the no-longer-young-turks dept.
petermp writes "A Turkish court has blocked access to the popular blog hosting service Blogger (Blogger.com and Blogspot.com, owned by Google), since Friday, October 24th, 2008. According to BasBasBas.com, a Dutch blogger based in Istanbul, who alerted readers about the issue: 'It is suspected that the reason for this has something to do with Adnan Oktar, by some considered the leading Muslim advocate for creationism, who has in the past managed to get Wordpress, Google Groups, as well as Richard Dawkins' website [banned].'"

Comment Re:Record label dude is kinda asking for it (Score 3, Informative) 282

by IronClad (#25437421) Attached to: Record Label Infringes Own Copyright, Site Pulled

>Fair enough

Not fair at all. First of all, if the blog and myspace post are accurate, then the ISP is citing their TOS as the agreement that requires this. The TOS here dated June 16:

http://www.ixwebhosting.com/index.php/v2/pages.tos#q21

says *nothing* about copyright registrations being required or any other provenance for hosted content. If they don't have some other reason for the service outage, I'd speculate that they're making up the "terms" as they go.

>why record label dude doesn't simply register

I see no indication of how many files we're talking about. Depending on how it's structured, $35/file could add up to cash that a struggling artist does not have. They probably would not be needed later either, as I think most folks are inclined to respect CC license provisions.

Still, it's hardly a problem going forward. If the label's report bears scrutiny, then the IX brand is toxic.
Media

MLB Fans Who Bought DRM Videos Get Hosed 299

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the digital-restrictions-management dept.
Billosaur writes "Major League Baseball has just strengthened the case against DRM. If you downloaded videos of baseball games from MLB.com before 2006, apparently they no longer work and you are out of luck. MLB.com, sometime during 2006, changed their DRM system. Result: game videos purchased before that time will now no longer work, as the previous DRM system is no longer supported. When the video is played, apparently the MLB.com servers are contacted and a license obtained to verify the authenticity of the video; this is done by a web link. That link no longer exists, and so now the videos will no longer play, even though the MLB FAQ says that a license is only obtained once and will not need to be re-obtained. The blogger who is reporting this contacted MLB technical support, only to be told there are no refunds due to this problem."
United States

Submission + - Font Freedom Day (trumpetpower.com)

Submitted by
TrumpetPower!
TrumpetPower! writes: "On September 29, 1988, the Library of Congress Copyright Office issued a notice of policy decision (4 Mbyte coralized PDF) in the Federal Register “to inform the public that the Copyright Office has decided that digitized representations of typeface designs are not registrable under the Copyright Act because they do not constitute original works of authorship.” In observance of Font Freedom day, go ahead and share some of your favorite fonts with your friends — and do so entirely guilt-free!"

Feed Science Daily: Sizing Cells Up: Researchers Pinpoint When A Cell Is Ready To Reproduce (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed
For more than 100 years, scientists have tried to figure out the cell size problem: How does a cell know when it is big enough to divide? In research conducted in budding yeast, scientists have now identified the cellular event that marks the moment when a cell knows it is big enough to commit to cell division and spawn genetic replicas of itself. The findings provide a precise and quantitative framework for studying the possible mechanisms that allow cells to monitor and sense their size.
Portables

Submission + - ACER Sent me back my Tablet damaged and NONworking

Submitted by iv_vi
iv_vi writes: Hi, At the beginning of this month I sent my Acer Tablet to be repaired because I had problems with my optical drive (two times in the last 4 months) and FLASHING screen (very annoying! on 14"). When I got it back a week later it appeared that the latch did not work, there was a dent on the cover and the most important thing — it was NOT working at all. After I talked with a supervisor from Acer Support, at least I was told he was one, he said that they will accept the tablet back and I should not pay for sending it to them (very nice of them!) and he promised that they will extend my warranty. Once I receive it back two days ago I noticed that they had fix the latch and the tablet was working. BUT the keys for launching wireless and bluetooth do not work, the space bar is not working most of the time, the dent was still here and ... the screen is FLASHING again (they claim they replaced the inverter). I talked with Costumer Service immediately — they refuse to fix the dent, they wanted me to pay for the shipping (flashing screen is a problem that appeared two times in the same month and by all means should be their responsibility) and finally almost at the very end of the conversation they agreed to cover this expense, and they say they DO NOT have a record for extending my warranty, no word why my screen is still having the same problem. Sending them working Tablet and receiving not working one?!? My questions are: What can I do? What should I do? (You think about the quality of the product!)
Censorship

Submission + - AT&T Silences Criticism in New Terms of Servic (bellsouth.net) 1

Submitted by marco13185
marco13185 writes: AT&T's new Terms of Service give AT&T the right to suspend your account and all service "for conduct that AT&T believes"..."(c) tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries." After cooperating with the government's violations of privacy and liberties, I guess AT&T wants their fair share. AT&T users may want to think twice about commenting if they value their internet service.
Enlightenment

Submission + - Satellite images show Myanmar abuses (msn.com) 1

Submitted by
Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: "Satellite images that resulted from a year-long study just released by The American Association for the Advancement of Science, human rights campaigners and commercial satellite providers show evidence from above that Burma's military-led government has engaged in a long campaign of destroying villages and relocating villagers. "Human-rights groups say that more than 3,000 villages have been destroyed in an effort to crush opposition to the junta. Civil unrest in Myanmar has created 1.5 million refugees and 500,000 internally displaced people, and 1,300 political prisoners are in jail, according to human-rights reports.""
United States

Submission + - Texas Lawmakers Steal Votes (youtube.com) 4

Submitted by
absentmindedjwc
absentmindedjwc writes: "It appears lawmakers in Texas frequently walk around the house floor casting votes for members who are not at their seat. Some members are seen on video casting as many as 4 votes. One member goes on camera to justify this practice as necessary in order to allow fellow house members time for lunch and personal time.

Watch the video and determine for yourself if you think these people are doing this as a "favor" for their colleagues, or if they might just be stealing votes."
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Should game reviewers penalize for excessive DRM? 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The highest rated PC game on the market, Bioshock, also happens to contain an unusually agressive implemention of Sony's Securom DRM software. The single-player only game requires internet activation with serial key entry before it can be run. It can be installed and uninstalled on a PC a maximum of 5 times, after which it will permit no further reinstalls. The game also will not run without the install DVD present in the computer's drive, despite having activated online and placed Securom on the user's computer — without the user's consent. This has created a bizarre situation where game reviewers are positively gushing about just how good Bioshock is, and ordinary gamers who have bought the PC version intensely dislike its agressive protection system even if they like the game itself. Does a game that limits basic user rights like installing and uninstalling a game as many times as is necessary deserve scores like 10/10 and 95%? Or should game reviewers base their review on the complete product experience and penalize a game for overzealous activation and anti-piracy checks while rewarding games that do not burden the buyer with troublesome DRM, online activation and disc-in-the-drive with a higher score?
Patents

Amazon's Lawyers Jerking USPTO Around? 134

Posted by CowboyNeal from the unleash-the-busy-work dept.
theodp writes "Reacting to an actor's do-it-yourself legal effort that triggered a reexam of Amazon.com's 1-Click patent, attorneys for Amazon have fired back, deluging the USPTO with documents to review, including Wikipedia articles. With the latest batch, Amazon's high-priced law firm even requested that USTPO examiners review an archived page of Norm Quotes (yes, Norm from Cheers) and rule that it does not invalidate CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click patent."
Slashback

Slashback: Rendering, Munich, Clones 301

Posted by timothy from the render-me-this dept.
Slashback tonight with a passel of updates, corrections and tangents related to recent Slashdot postings, including GNU/Linux vs. Windows in Munich, Bunnie Huang's book on Xbox hacking, Mozilla's 5-line crash-test, and (sigh) yet another SCO note, but at least it's one to smile at. Read on for the details.
Unix

Today's SCO News 417

Posted by michael from the feel-the-excitement dept.
joebeone writes "Linus has commented on the SCO v. IBM suit saying "SCO is playing it like the Raelians" and that he will withhold his judgement until the code in question is shown in court. He has also recommended that former slashdot editor, Chris DiBona, be appointed to a panel offered by SCO to examine the evidence." Businessweek has an interview with SCO's CEO. The Open Group would like to remind everyone that SCO is only one of many in the Unix world.

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