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Submission + - Mozilla had no choice but to add DRM to Firefox (jimlynch.com)

Submitted by JimLynch
JimLynch writes: Mozilla has been in the news quite a lot over the last few months. This time the organization is being hammered by open source advocates for adding Adobe DRM to Firefox. But did the folks at Mozilla really have a choice when it comes adding DRM? An open source project like Mozilla is not immune to market pressures. And with so many competing browsers such as Chrome adding DRM for Netflix, etc. how could Firefox avoid adding it? Is it realistic to think that Firefox can simply ignore such things? I don’t think so and the reason why is in Firefox’s usage numbers over the last few years.

Submission + - 1 TB memory chip about to become reality (phys.org)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Toshiba, teaming up with its memory partner Sandisk, in a deal worth a reported 500 billion yen ($4.84 billion) to set up a plant to produce flash chip which can be as large as One Terabyte (TB) each

Inside the 1TB flash chip several layers of wafers would be stacked on top of each other using the 3D packing technique

The different layers of wafer would hooked on and linked to each others using the through-silicon via (TSV) technology

The proposed chip would be 16 times as large as the 64gigabyte (GB) flash chip Toshiba produces.

Submission + - Why Cheap Smartphones Are Going To Upset the Industry (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Just when people got used to good smartphones costing $200 with a 2-year contract, they also started to realize that those 2-year contracts were bad news. Still, it's often more palatable than fronting $600 for good, new hardware. But that's starting to change. Cell phone internals are getting cheap enough that prices for capable devices have been creeping downward below $200 without a contract. We ran into something similar with the PC industry some years back — previous-gen chips had no trouble running next-gen software (excluding game with bleeding edge graphics), and so the impetus to keep getting the latest-and-greatest disappeared for a lot of people. That revolution is underway now for smartphones, and it's going to shake things up for everybody, including Apple and Samsung. But the biggest effects will be felt in the developing world: 'That means for a vast number of people in a vast number of countries, the cheap handset will be the first screen, and the only screen. Their primary interface with the world. A way of connecting to the Internet where there are no telephone lines or coaxial cables or even electricity. In nations without subsidized cell phone contracts or access to consumer credit, the $50-and-you-own-it handset is going to be transformative.'

Submission + - Free software foundation condemns Mozilla's move to support DRM in Firefox. (fsf.org)

Submitted by ptr_88
ptr_88 writes: Free software foundation has opposed Mozilla's move to support DRM in Firefox browser partnership with Adobe. This is what FSF has to say about this move : The Free Software Foundation is deeply disappointed in Mozilla's announcement. The decision compromises important principles in order to alleviate misguided fears about loss of browser market share. It allies Mozilla with a company hostile to the free software movement and to Mozilla's own fundamental ideals .

Submission + - List of Congressmen Who Lobbied FCC Against Net Neutrality & Received Payoff

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Ars Technica published an article Friday highlighting the results from research conducted by a money-in-politics watchdog regarding the 28 congressmen who sent a combined total of three letters to the FCC protesting against re-classifying the internet as a public utility. These 28 members of the U.S. House of Representatives 'received, on average, $26,832 from the "cable & satellite TV production & distribution" sector over a two-year period ending in December. According to the data, that's 2.3 times more than the House average of $11,651.' That's average. Actual amounts that the 28 received over a two year period ranged from $109,250 (Greg Waldon, R-OR) to $0 (Nick Rahall, D-WV). Look at the list yourselves, and find your representative to determine how much legitimacy can be attributed to their stated concerns for the public.

Submission + - Static Electricity Defies Simple Explanation (sciencemag.org) 3

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: If you’ve ever wiggled a balloon against your hair, you know that rubbing together two different materials can generate static electricity. But rubbing bits of the same material can create static, too. Now, researchers have shot down a decades-old idea of how that same-stuff static comes about.

Comment Re:Any chance of finding gravitational waves? (Score 3, Informative) 45

by rotorbudd (#46835583) Attached to: Astronomers Discover Pair of Black Holes In Inactive Galaxy

. Also, their separation is by a couple thousand light years,

TFA reads:
"The separation between the black holes is quite small: 0.6 milliparsecs, or about 2 thousandths of a light year. That's about the width of our Solar System."
So gravitation waves might be seen AT that distance

Submission + - Google and Facebook: Unelected Superpowers? 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "The government is not the only American power whose motivations need to be rigourously examined," writes The Telegraph's Katherine Rushton. "Some 2,400 miles away from Washington, in Silicon Valley, Google is aggressively gaining power with little to keep it in check. It has cosied up to governments around the world so effectively that its chairman, Eric Schmidt, is a White House advisor. In Britain, its executives meet with ministers more than almost any other corporation. Google can't be blamed for this: one of its jobs is to lobby for laws that benefit its shareholders, but it is up to governments to push back. As things stand, Google — and to a lesser extent, Facebook — are in danger of becoming the architects of the law." Schmidt, by the way, is apparently interested in influencing at least two current hot-button White House issues. Joined by execs from Apple, Oracle, and Facebook, the Google Chairman asserted in a March letter to Secretary of State John Kerry that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline is not in the economic interests of the U.S.; the Obama administration on Friday extended the review period on the pipeline, perhaps until after the Nov. 4 congressional elections. And as a "Major Contributor" to Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us PAC, Schmidt is also helping to shape public opinion on the White House's call for immigration reform; FWD.us just launched new attack ads (videos) and a petition aimed at immigration reform opponent Rep. Steve King. In Dave Eggers' The Circle, politicians who impede the company execs' agenda are immediately brought down. But that's fiction, right?

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