techmuse writes "Viewing the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony online at NBC's Olympics website, you can see that the order in which the countries were presented was very different from the actual order of the countries in the ceremony, as listed at Wikipedia. NBC skipped roughly 100 countries ahead, then jumped back and forth, apparently delaying the appearance of the United States in its home market until later in the broadcast. (In fact, the US team was shown on the infield before they were shown marching!) NBC did not acknowledge this in its broadcast. Is NBC altering the reality of the broadcast to boost ratings? Was this true only online, or also in the live broadcast?"

An anonymous reader writes "Due to contracts that are allegedly FUBAR, and associated wrangling, the Navajo Nation is being cut off by its satellite ISP. This is the final stage of the process, which already deprived chapter houses of access last April. While the business mechanisms play themselves into the expected ludicrous snarl, the real question may be: Is there a place for an inexpensive ham/technogeek/FOSS solution that could bypass the antics of the for-pay providers?"

A Cow writes "When the hard rock band Buckcherry found out their latest single had leaked on BitTorrent, they didn't try to cover it up or take the file down. No, instead, they issued a press release. After a bit of research, TorrentFreak found out the track wasn't leaked by pirates, but by Josh Klemme, the manager of the band. In an attempt to cover their tracks, the press release was pulled, but it's still available through Reuters and Google's cache."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "I guess the RIAA is getting nervous about the ability of its 'national law firm' (in charge of bringing 'ex parte' motions, securing default judgments, and beating up grandmothers and children) to handle the oral argument scheduled to be heard on Monday, August 4th in Duluth, in Capitol v. Thomas. So, at the eleventh hour, it has brought in one of its 'Big Guns' from Washington, D.C., a lawyer who argues United States Supreme Court cases like MGM v. Grokster to handle the argument. This is the case where a $222,000 verdict was awarded for downloading 24 songs, but the judge ultimately realized that he had been misled by the RIAA in issuing his jury instructions, and indicated he's probably going to order a new trial. But, not to worry. A group of 10 copyright law professors from 10 different law schools and several other amici curiae (friends of the court) have filed briefs now, so it is highly unlikely the judge will allow himself to be misled again, no matter who the RIAA brings in as cannon fodder on Monday."

Antiglobalism writes to tell us that an Alameda County Judge has ruled against Sprint Nextel in a class-action lawsuit, awarding customers $18.2 million in restitution for early termination fees. "Though the decision could be appealed, it's the first in the country to declare the fees illegal in a state and could affect other similar lawsuits, with broad implications for the nation's fast-growing legions of cell phone users. The judge - who is overseeing several other suits against telecommunications companies that involve similar fees - also told the company to stop trying to collect $54.7 million from other customers who haven't yet paid the charges they were assessed. The suit said about 2 million Californians were assessed the fee."

Bridger writes "Amazon has introduced two new payment systems for merchants and consumers, which brings it into a market dominated by PayPal. Google introduced a similar system for merchants and consumers in 2006, also called Checkout, but it has not found favor with online retailers. Auction giant eBay, which owns PayPal, has prevented consumers from using the Google system."

coondoggie writes "Microsoft's Sam Ramji is like a turkey knocking on Thanksgiving's door. Ramji has the unenviable task of stretching his neck out into the open source world as Microsoft's representative. On top of it, his employer has preheated the oven with years of hubris, sleights of hand and broken promises. Ramji's Sisyphean task was evident last week in Portland at the Open Source Conference (OSCon) and will likely be fuel for chatter at next week's LinuxWorld gathering in San Francisco."

dstates writes "The automobile industry may be hurting, but Microsoft is doubling down and making a massive new investment in its automotive business unit. Microsoft already works closely with a number of car companies and will enhance that effort with more people and more resources. Sync developed as a collaboration with Ford Motor Co. allows motorists to control their cell phones, music players and navigation systems with voice commands while they drive. Microsoft is also making 'Live Search' technology available to automakers to develop in-car search and navigation. Detroit native Tom Philips, the new unit leader said 'There are a lot of technologies that are two to three years out that are going to provide even more connectivity and innovation. There's such a disconnect between what people experience in their cars and what they experience in the rest of their lives.'"

A US court has ordered a firm to utilize negative adwords in their internet advertising. "Orion Bancorp took Orion Residential Finance (ORF) to court in Florida over ORF's use of the word 'Orion' in relation to financial services and products, arguing that it had used the term since 2002 and had held a trade mark for it since then. [...] The judge in the case went further, though, restraining ORF from 'purchasing or using any form of advertising including keywords or "adwords" in internet advertising containing any mark incorporating Plaintiff's Mark, or any confusingly similar mark, and shall, when purchasing internet advertising using keywords, adwords or the like, require the activation of the term "Orion" as negative keywords or negative adwords in any internet advertising purchased or used.'"

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In Atlantic v. Howell, the judge has totally eviscerated the RIAA's theories of 'making available' and 'offering to distribute.' In a 17-page opinion (PDF), District Judge Neil V. Wake carefully analyzed the statute and case law, and based on a 'plain reading of the statute' concluded that 'Unless a copy of the work changes hands in one of the designated ways, a "distribution" under [sec.] 106(3) has not taken place.' The judge also questioned the sufficiency of the RIAA's evidence pointing towards defendant, as opposed to other members of his household. This is the Phoenix, Arizona, case in which the defendant is representing himself, but received some timely help from his friends. And it's the same case in which the RIAA suggested that Mr. Howell's MP3s, copied from his CDs, were unlawful. One commentator calls today's decision 'Another bad day for the RIAA.'"

An anonymous reader sends word that Microsoft Windows XP SP3, which had been scheduled to hit the Web today, was pulled back at the last minute. SP3 apparently broke a Microsoft application, Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System. Their solution is to set up a filter to make sure that no system running the affected software will get automatically updated; once the filter is in place, SP3 will be released to the Web. A fix for the incompatibility will follow.

bfwebster writes "Microsoft has lost its appeal to remove class-action status for the 'Vista Capable' lawsuit that has already resulted in some embarrassing internal e-mails being released publicly. As Computerworld reports, in its appeal to the US Ninth Circuit Court, Microsoft argued (among other things) that 'continuing the lawsuit might mean new disclosures of insider e-mails, which could "jeopardize Microsoft's goodwill" and "disrupt Microsoft's relationships with its business partners."' Given what's been released so far (158-page PDF), not to mention Microsoft's history of rather frank internal e-mails, that's probably putting it mildly. There could be some interesting reading ahead."

In response to the continued attacks on Microsoft's OOXML standard, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has called for a ceasefire. "Last week the ISO committee in charge of document standards, SC 34, met in Oslo to discuss the way forward for OOXML and ODF. The plenary session was marked by protests outside, largely carried out by delegates from a nearby open-source conference. The protesters were calling for OOXML to be withdrawn from ISO standardization -- something that could theoretically happen if a national standards body were to protest against its own vote within the next month or two."

snydeq writes "First it's letting users manage their own PCs and now it's sanctioning the shadow IT projects they do on the down low: 'You probably know them. They're the ones who installed their own Wi-Fi network in the break room and distribute homemade number-crunching apps to their coworkers on e-mail. They're hacking their iPhones right now to work with your company's mail servers. In short, they're walking, talking IT governance nightmares. But they could be your biggest assets, if you use them wisely. The reason superusers go rogue is usually frustration, says Marquis. "It's a symptom of the IT organization being unable to meet or even understand the needs of its customers," he says. "Otherwise, it wouldn't be happening." The solution? Put them to work.'"

spacefiddle writes "Computerworld has an article about a presentation from Gartner analysts in Las Vegas claiming that Windows is 'collapsing', and that Microsoft 'must make radical changes to the operating system or risk becoming a has-been.' Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald provided an analysis of what went wrong with Vista, and what they feel Microsoft can and must do to correct its problems. Larry Dignan of ZDNet has his own take, and while he agrees, he suggests that the downfall of Windows will be slow and drawn-out. As an interesting tangent to this, there's also a story from a few days prior about Ubuntu replacing Windows for a school's library kiosks, getting good performance out of older hardware. '[Network administrator Daniel] Stefyn said he was "pleasantly surprised" to discover that the Kubuntu desktops ran some applications faster with Linux than when they ran on Windows. An additional benefit of Windows' departure from student library terminals saw the students cease 'hacking the setup to install and play games or trash the operating system.'"