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Music

Journal Journal: Court declines to postpone Internet radio royalty hike

Journal by twitter

Ars technica carries the bad news handed out by US Court of Apppeals for the DC Circuit:

[the court] denied a motion to postpone the onset of the new royalty regime. In a brief order, the court said that the issues raised by the webcasters did not satisfy its "stringent standards."
Music

Submission + - Federal court denies Internet Radio appeal

Submitted by StonyandCher
StonyandCher writes: A U.S. federal appeals court has denied a petition from music webcaster associations for an emergency stay of new royalty rates that Internet radio companies have to start paying on Sunday.

The stay, if granted, would have delayed the July 15 due date of the increased royalty payments that are owed by music webcasters to SoundExchange, the nonprofit organization set up by the Recording Industry Association of America to collect so-called digital performance royalties for recording artists and record companies.

"If Internet radio goes silent, I will fight to make sure the silence is brief," Inslee said in a statement sent via e-mail. "One thing is sure: After July 15, national pressure for a resolution of this travesty only will increase. We are not going away."
Announcements

Did We Really Need Seven New Wonders? 324

Posted by Zonk from the i-miss-the-hanging-gardens dept.
freakxx writes "Seven new 'wonders of the world' have been announced today in a ceremony in Lisbon, Portugal. People throughout the world have voted actively to elect the new 7 out of 21 finalists. The final lineup is: Chichen Itza, Mexico; Christ Redeemer, Brazil; The Great Wall, China; Machu Picchu, Peru; Petra, Jordan; The Roman Colosseum, Italy; and The Taj Mahal, India. The Pyramids of Giza was the only candidate that used to be among the original seven wonders. Did we really need seven new wonders of the world? Why was this decided via a website poll (pdf) and SMS messages?"
The Courts

Gateway Customer Sues to Get His PC Fixed 147

Posted by Zonk from the toss-the-tossing-toses dept.
prostoalex writes "The Sacramento Bee tells the story of an El Dorado resident who had to go to small claims court to get his Gateway PC fixed: 'Right out of the box, he says, the computer displayed scattered graphics and wouldn't work properly. He says he called a Gateway salesman five times and sent him an e-mail to get an authorization number to send the computer back, but his phone calls and message were never returned. Then, over the course of months, Sheehan said he called Gateway technical support dozens of times.' Gateway insists that by clicking 'Accept' on a customer service EULA when the computer was first booted, Mr. Sheehan has waived his rights to sue the computer manufacturer in United States courts. The Gateway EULA states that conflicts must be resolved via private arbitrage. Sheehan, though, argues that he never saw the EULA, because of the broken graphics. As such, he's not held to that agreement." Some connections between this and a discussion about a Second Life case we had yesterday.
Television

New Review Compares MythTV to Vista MCE 234

Posted by CmdrTaco from the one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other dept.
Parkus writes "There's a nice review on AVS forum of MythTV (Ubuntu) and Windows Vista MCE. The author tried both back to back and explains the pluses and minuses of each system after using them for a month. Helpful if you're thinking about setting up your own home theater rig."

Feed Google cooking up more apps for the iPhone and other details (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Cellphones

So The Seattle Times got a sit down with the rather guarded Glenn Lurie, AT&T's man on the ground for the iPhone. While he didn't give much up in the way of the phone's finer details, he did have one takeaway that left us interested. When asked about the mass skepticism over the iPhone's price, he replied "... There are other things -- you have the widgets, some of the Google applications that are coming -- there are just so many things here that the price will not be an issue." Now, we don't want to get all weird here and read tea leaves, but he did say Google applications (as in plural), so we think it's safe to say Google has more planned than just Gmaps for the iPhone. We wouldn't be surprised to see a Google news reader, Gmail, or even Gcal apps on there, but given the fact that Apple already has its own agenda for mail, calendaring and the like, it might stand to reason the iPhone won't be locking its users out of 3rd party add-on apps after all. Another interesting detail: "people are going to be asked to have an unlimited [data] package" with the iPhone. Hm, no surprise there. Ok, discuss / argue amongst yourselves.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Space

Submission + - New images of deep Martian caves

Submitted by untree
untree writes: The Astronomy Picture of the Day today is an image recently taken by the HiRISE instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. More information is available on the Planetary Society blog, including a description of the paper (pdf) that describes this series of caves.

From the image description:

"Black spots have been discovered on Mars that are so dark that nothing inside can be seen. Quite possibly, the spots are entrances to deep underground caves capable of protecting Martian life, were it to exist."


And for fans of traditional units of measure, this cave entrance is about the size of a football field.

Feed [NSFW] Hacking sexual pleasure: a hard, slippery problem (theregister.com)

From feed by registerfeed
3001: A Pants Odyssey

NSFW Everyone wants more pleasure with less effort, so humans have used mechanical augmentation for ages: prehistoric dildos and porn, Kama Sutra treatises, lubes, piercings, and lately vibrators and Viagra. But since sex is really all about electrical nerve impulses, shouldn't electronics and signal processing be able to enhance pleasure even further? Can't we geeks contribute technology to our favorite activity?
Censorship

Submission + - Store Burns Books to Protest Decline in Reading

Submitted by
Frosty Piss
Frosty Piss writes: "Tom Wayne amassed thousands of books in a warehouse during the 10 years he has run his used book store, Prospero's Books. But wanting to thin out his collection, he found he couldn't even give away books to libraries or thrift shops, which said they were full. So Wayne began burning his books protest what he sees as society's diminishing support for the printed word. 'This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today,' Wayne told spectators outside his bookstore as he lit the first batch of books. The fire blazed for about 50 minutes before the Fire Department put it out because Wayne didn't have a permit to burn them."
The Internet

Millions of Addresses, Thousands of Sites, One Business 97

Posted by Zonk from the tentacles-everywhere dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A New York Times piece looks at a rising power in the 'new internet bubble' that you may not have heard of before. The business, an outfit called NameMedia, has made a concerted effort to quietly purchase vast tracts of 'real estate' on the internet. The ultimate goal is to provide additional advertising and page views for content sites. 'Behind this suddenly active business category -- which includes companies like iREIT in Houston, Marchex in Seattle, and Demand Media in Santa Monica, Calif. -- is the recognition that not all Internet users turn to a search engine when they are confused about where to find something online. Rather, 5 percent to 10 percent of people will simply type in a name that sounds as if it might suit their needs. The so-called direct search or direct navigation approach is seldom fruitful for users, nor has it been particularly profitable for owners of the sites that they visit. An obscure Web address may have four or so visitors a month, and perhaps half will click on an ad.'"
The Courts

Submission + - Storing Music for Personal Use Online is Illegal

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: In a court case of JASRAC vs. Image City, The Tokyo District Court handed down a ruling that says Image City's MYUTA service is guilty of copyright infringement. MYUTA is an online music storage service that allows users to upload music from their own CDs etc. to a central server from which they can download to their cellphones to listen to. Music uploaded to the central server is accessible only by the user who uploaded it and can only be downloaded to their cellphone. Despite the music only being stored for personal use, the ruling reasoned that the act of uploading music to a central server owned by a company is the equivalent of distributing music to that company. This has implications for other services such as Yahoo! Briefcase which could mean Yahoo! is gulity of copyright infringement if any of its users store music in their account for personal use. Google's translation can have a go at the original Japanese article.
Software

Submission + - Microsoft is using Linux for their Servers!

Submitted by jhepoy
jhepoy writes: http://pinoygeek.org/2007/05/27/microsoft-is-using -linux-for-their-servers/ Yahoo.com is a consistent FreeBSD on their servers. Apple.com which is known for OSX as based in Unix is not surprising to see MacOSX and Linux running on their servers. The most surprising part is when I looked for Microsoft.com statistics and found out that they are running Linux on some of their web servers. The irony is that Microsoft is attacking Linux as an insecure OS which can be found on their Get The Facts campaign.
Biotech

Some Soft Drinks May Damage Your DNA 643

Posted by Zonk from the argh-my-mitochondria dept.
Parallax Blue writes "The Independent is reporting new findings that indicate a common additive called sodium benzoate, found in soft drinks such as Fanta and Pepsi Max among others, has the ability to switch off vital parts of DNA in a cell's mitochondria. From the article: 'The mitochondria consumes the oxygen to give you energy and if you damage it — as happens in a number of diseased states — then the cell starts to malfunction very seriously. And there is a whole array of diseases that are now being tied to damage to this DNA — Parkinson's and quite a lot of neuro-degenerative diseases, but above all the whole process of aging.' European Union MPs are now calling for an urgent investigation in the wake of these alarming new findings."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Scientists prepare to move Doomsday Clock forward

Submitted by antikarma
antikarma writes: The keepers of the "Doomsday Clock" plan to move its hands forward next Wednesday to reflect what they call worsening nuclear and climate threats to the world. The symbolic clock, maintained by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, currently is set at seven minutes to midnight, with midnight marking global catastrophe. The group did not say in which direction the hands would move. But in a news release previewing an event next Wednesday, they said the change was based on "worsening nuclear, climate threats" to the world.

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