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Media

Warner Music Pulls Videos Off YouTube 237

Posted by Soulskill from the taking-their-toys-and-going-home dept.
iammani writes with this excerpt from Reuters: "Warner Music Group ordered YouTube on Saturday to remove all music videos by its artists from the popular online video-sharing site after contract negotiations broke down. ... The talks fell apart early on Saturday because Warner wants a bigger share of the huge revenue potential of YouTube's massive visitor traffic. There were no reports on what Warner was seeking. 'We simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide,' Warner said in a statement." Warner's deal with YouTube to make those videos available came just prior to YouTube's acquisition by Google.
Earth

Scientist Patents New Method To Fight Global Warming 492

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the and-we-will-need-an-additional-10,000-coal-plants-to-power-this dept.
SUNSTOP writes to tell us that a relatively unknown Maryland scientist has proposed a public patent that he claims could combat global warming. The proposed plan would require massive amounts of water to be sprayed into the air in an effort to bolster the earth's existing air conditioning system. "First, the sprayed droplets would transform to water vapor, a change that absorbs thermal energy near ground level; then the rising vapor would condense into sunlight-reflecting clouds and cooling rain, releasing much of the stored energy into space in the form of infrared radiation. Kenneth Caldeira, a climate scientist for the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University whose computer simulation of Ace's invention suggests it would significantly cool the planet. The simulated evaporation of about one-half inch of additional water everywhere in the world produced immediate planetary cooling effects that were projected to reach nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit within 20 or 30 years, Caldeira said."

Comment Re:Still not convinced lawsuit was valid. (Score 1) 51

by neo (#26175029) Attached to: Hasbro Finally Drops Scrabulous Lawsuit

I can't patent it... there's prior art. (See: Hasbro Scrabble)

'Capablanca Chess' is a chess variant that includes two new pieces (one that moves like a rook and a knight and one that moves like a bishop and a knight). The game was created as a way to avoid the current frequency of draws in chess.

It was never patented.

However 'Gothic Chess' was patented. ( US patent number 6,481,716 on November 19, 2002 ) The games are nearly identical except for the starting position of the pieces.

You could make the argument that it *shouldn't* be patented, but it is and it has much less innovation than Scrabble.

Comment Re:Still not convinced lawsuit was valid. (Score 1) 51

by neo (#26159875) Attached to: Hasbro Finally Drops Scrabulous Lawsuit

Two points:

1. The patent office gives out game mechanic patents pretty easily. I've seen copies of chess variants with only the switching of piece positions given as new mechanics.

2. You don't think that scrabble meets the criteria of innovation? I see absolutely no prior art that comes close to it and the restricted use and valuation of tiles for letter use is entirely inventive.
Windows

British Royal Navy Submarines Now Run Windows 725

Posted by samzenpus from the deep-blue-screen dept.
meist3r writes "On his Government blog, Microsoft's Ian McKenzie announced today that the Royal Navy was ahead of schedule for switching their nuclear submarines to a customized Microsoft Windows solution dubbed 'Submarine Command System Next Generation (SMCS NG)' which apparently consists of Windows 2000 network servers and XP workstations. In the article, it is claimed that this decision will save UK taxpayers £22m over the next ten years. The installation of the new system apparently took just 18 days on the HMS Vigilant. According to the BAE Systems press release from 2005, the overall cost of the rollout was £24.5m for all eleven nuclear submarines of the Vanguard, Trafalgar and Swiftsure classes. Talk about staying with the sinking ship."
Image

Researchers Test Whether Sharks Enjoy Christmas Songs 142

Posted by samzenpus from the what-now dept.
Scientists plan to test whether sharks enjoy listening to Christmas pop songs, after US research showed fish could recognize melody. Chris Brown, senior marine biologist at the Loch Lomond aquarium, said seasonal music would be played through walkthrough underwater tunnels where they can be heard by dozens of nurse sharks, black-tip reef sharks, and ray species. Experts will then monitor the sharks' reactions to different songs. We'll play everything from Kim Wilde and Mel Smith's Rocking Around the Christmas Tree and Merry Christmas Everybody by Slade to Wham's Last Christmas. We may find they prefer something softer like White Christmas by Bing Crosby," Brown said. Thank you for answering this question science.
Earth

Drilling Hits an Active Magma Chamber In Hawaii 251

Posted by timothy from the time-for-a-lava-luau dept.
Smivs writes "The BBC are reporting that drillers looking for geothermal energy in Hawaii have inadvertently put a well right into a magma chamber. Molten rock pushed back up the borehole several meters before solidifying, making it perfectly safe to study. Magma specialist Bruce Marsh says it will allow scientists to observe directly how granites are made. 'This is unprecedented; this is the first time a magma has been found in its natural habitat,' the Johns Hopkins University professor told BBC News. 'Before, all we had to deal with were lava flows; but they are the end of a magma's life. They're lying there on the surface, they've de-gassed. It's not the natural habitat.' It is hoped the site can now become a laboratory, with a series of cores drilled around the chamber to better characterise the crystallisation changes occurring in the rock as it loses temperature."
Programming

Scaling Facebook To 140 Million Users 178

Posted by CmdrTaco from the that's-a-lotta-load dept.
1sockchuck writes "Facebook now has 140 million users, and in recent weeks has been adding 600,000 new users a day. To keep pace with that growth, the Facebook engineering team has been tweaking its use of memcached, and says it can now handle 200,000 UDP requests per second. Facebook has detailed its refinements to memcached, which it hopes will be included in the official memcached repository. For now, their changes have been released to github."
Social Networks

Australian Court Lets Lawyer Serve Papers Via Facebook 204

Posted by kdawson from the super-poked dept.
a302b writes "A Canberra lawyer has been permitted to serve legal documents via Facebook for a couple who defaulted on a loan. He claims he needed to do this because he was unable to track them down to a physical address. At what point does our online presence become 'real?' And what opportunities are available for fraud, if social networking sites are considered legal representations of ourselves, even when they can be anonymously created under any name?"
Image

Sleep Mailing 195

Posted by samzenpus from the better-than-drunk-dialing dept.
Doctors have reported the first case of someone using the internet while asleep, when a sleeping woman sent emails to people asking them over for drinks and caviar. The 44-year-old woman found out what she had done after a would be guest phoned her about it the next day. While asleep the woman turned on her computer, logged on by typing her username and password then composed and sent three emails. Each mail was in a random mix of upper and lower cases, unformatted and written in strange language. One read: "Come tomorrow and sort this hell hole out. Dinner and drinks, 4.pm,. Bring wine and caviar only." Another said simply, "What the......." If I had known that researchers were interested in unformatted, rambling email I would have let them read my inbox. They could start a whole new school of medicine.
The Almighty Buck

Publishers Detail Specific In-Game Ad Plans For Future Games 104

Posted by Soulskill from the just-what-i-never-wanted dept.
MTV's Multiplayer Blog recaps a recent event held by Massive Inc., a subsidiary of Microsoft, during which game publishers put forth specific ideas on what types of in-game advertising players will and won't be seeing in the near future. The examples varied in how interactive and intrusive they were, from name-brand bottled water power-ups to destructible virtual billboards to taking advantage of sports game locker rooms for product placement. They did claim they would restrain themselves from blatant advertisements that would ruin immersion in fantasy games. Blizzard partnered with Massive to bring ads to Battle.net, but don't expect to see ads in the associated games.

Comment OMG... he wrote it backwards. (Score 1) 356

by neo (#25878983) Attached to: Anathem

That's the only explanation for it starting so badly and ending so strong. It also explains the open plot holes and the characters that randomly appear without resolution later... just justification before.

Brilliant! Good job Stephenson.
Image

Researchers Discover The Most Creative Time of Day 154

Posted by samzenpus from the ask-me-that-in-a-few-hours dept.
Creativity is least likely to strike in the afternoon, according to a survey that suggests office workers have little chance of solving problems after lunch. A poll of 1,426 people showed that a quarter of us stay up late when seeking inspiration. Taking a shower or just sitting in the bathroom proved to be a popular way of getting the creative juices flowing. The survey found that 10:04pm was the most creative time, while 4:33pm was the least. I'll think of something funny to write here later.
Security

Disgruntled Engineer Hijacks San Francisco's Computer System 1082

Posted by timothy from the wait-'til-he-turns-off-the-earthquake-preventor dept.
ceswiedler writes "A disgruntled software engineer has hijacked San Francisco's new multimillion-dollar municipal computer system. When the Department of Technology tried to fire him, he disabled all administrative passwords other than his own. He was taken into custody but has so far refused to provide the password, and the department has yet to regain admin access on their own. They're worried that he or an associate might be able to destroy hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents, including emails, payroll information, and law enforcement documents."

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