Section_Ei8ht writes to mention a Washington Post article about a new joint initiative between the U.S. government and the entertainment industry. The government will now be aiding efforts abroad to stop copyright infringement. They cite the recent Pirate Bay fiasco, as well as the problems Russia is having with the WTO as a result of their thriving IP black market. From the article: "The intellectual property industry and law enforcement officials estimate U.S. companies lose as much as $250 billion per year to Internet pirates, who swap digital copies of 'The DaVinci Code,' Chamillionaire's new album and the latest Grand Theft Auto video game for free."

mrraven writes "According to an article in the Washington Post the government is increasingly using consumer databases for surveillance purposes. " From the article: "It is difficult to pinpoint the number of such contracts because many of them are classified, experts said. At the federal level, 52 government agencies had launched, or planned to begin, at least 199 data-mining projects as far back as 2004, according to a Government Accountability Office study."

tanveer1979 writes "Barely 3 months after it commenced India operations, Apple has decided to pull out its software operations from Bangalore. The employees will be given a severance package which is equal to two months' pay. The sales and marketing operations will remain on (these consist of around 30 people) but the software and support will be completely pulled out." From the article: "Apple had set itself a hiring target of 600 by the year-end. After a gala induction ceremony on April 17, the operations team went to Transworks for training. Some of the managers were about to leave for the US for further training when they were asked to stay put."

gitana writes "The New York Times is reporting that American trade negotiators may demand the shutdown of AllofMP3.com as a condition of Russia joining the World Trade Organization." From the article: "Music industry officials say AllofMP3, which first came to their attention in 2004, is a large-scale commercial piracy site, and they dismiss its claims of legality. "It is totally unprecedented to have a pirate site operating so openly for so long," said Neil Turkewitz, executive vice president of the Recording Industry Association of America, who is based in Washington ... AllofMP3.com says on the site that it can legally sell to any user based in Russia and warns foreign users to verify the legality within their countries for themselves. The site features a wide selection of Russian music, but is written in English with prices listed in United States dollars."

prostoalex writes "PC Magazine takes a look at 'PC posture' and the problems associated with the workstyles of those who spend hours in front of the PC. They talk about proper sitting styles, the erroneous name of 'wrist rest,' monitor height and the need for periodic exercises to help alleviate potential repetitive stress injuries."

An anonymous reader writes to mention a ZDNet post about another possible product in the grand Google vision. The product, Google Checkout, may be an attempt to go after PayPal. From the article: "Since we know Google is behind its registration, what is Google Checkout going to be? I think it will be a shopping cart system to help websites accept payment for their items online. The money site owners make will be deposited into a holding account at Google -- just like AdSense works. Isn't this starting to sound a lot like PayPal? Who knows, they could even offer a Google branded Mastercard "debit card" like PayPal's ATM/Debit Card -- after all, the domain googlemastercard.com is registered to Google too."

scottzak writes "Hail to the Chief! Stephen Colbert addressed the White House Correspondents Dinner Saturday (attended by the President, the elite of Washington politics, and the White House Press Corps) and told the truth. Jaws dropped. Eyes popped. The live audience gasped. Scalia laughed his ass off. You want to see a brilliant comic display some real courage? Look no further. Enjoy the reaction shots, and Colbert's audition for Press Secretary job." The BBC covers the act just prior to Mr. Colbert's, where the President and a look-alike took turns making fun of his speaking skills.

userexec wrote to mention an FCW.com article about the uninspiring future for the Missile Defense System's software. The developers are apparently very worried about poor information security on the project. From the article: "The report said that neither MDA nor Boeing officials saw the need to install a system to conduct automated log audits on unencrypted communications and monitoring systems. Even though current DOD policies require such automated network monitoring, such a requirement 'was not in the contract.' The network, which was also developed to conform to more than 20-year-old DOD security policies rather than more recent guidelines, lacks a comprehensive user account management process, the report said. Neither MDA nor Boeing conducted required Information Assurance (IA) training for users before they were granted access to the network, the report stated. "

Rick Zeman wrote to mention a Washington Post article about an incident at a Bethesda library. Two uniformed men from a Homeland Security detachment made an announcement stating that pornography was not acceptable viewing at the library. They then questioned a patron's choice of reading material. From the article: "A librarian intervened, and the two men went into the library's work area to discuss the matter. A police officer arrived. In the end, no one had to step outside except the uniformed men. They were officers of the security division of Montgomery County's Homeland Security Department, an unarmed force that patrols about 300 county buildings -- but is not responsible for enforcing obscenity laws."

BigControversy writes "It looks like a big can of worms is being opened. The DailyTech.com is reporting that ATI sold millions of video cards knowing that HDCP support was not enabled. Despite that, the cards were sold and advertised to its customers as having HDCP capabilities. A day or two after this information was revealed, HDMI.org went completely password protected and ATI is now modifying key areas of its website, removing any mention of 'HDCP-ready'."

illusoryphoenix writes "A few weeks ago, Tom's Hardware noted a significant reduction in battery life of the Core Duo processors it tested when USB devices were inserted. Intel claimed that Microsoft had a bug in their USB drivers, while Tom's Hardware was unable to reproduce the same result for any of the other Pentium M microarchitecures. This issue has finally been publicly confirmed by Microsoft to be a USB driver problem which keeps the processor from entering advanced sleep states."

China has increased restrictions on internet game cafes. They've clamped down on anti-government slogans or displays and are now barring teenagers from them completely. Gamasutra reports: "'With the development of the Internet, there has been some harmful and illegal content,' said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao. 'The Chinese government has adopted some management measures so as to limit the immoral and harmful content, especially for young people.' Chinese regulation of Internet content has become controversial in recent weeks due to popular search engine Google's acquiescence to Chinese censorship of its results in exchange for official license to operate in the country."

Ant writes "CNET News.com reports that nearly one-third of American Internet users go online just for fun." From the article: "A survey of 1,931 Internet users conducted by Pew Internet & American Life Project in late November and December 2005 found 30 percent of respondents said they went online "for no particular reason" on the previous day. That was up from 21 percent in a November 2004 survey. The survey also showed that 34 percent of online men were surfing for fun on an average day in December, compared with 26 percent of women."

nmccart writes "Google gave testimony on Friday to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on International Relations. They discussed their decision to build google.cn in China. Elliot Schrage, the vice president for global communications and public affairs at Google describes how these China-based servers fit in to Google's mantra of 'Don't be evil.' Google hopes to use this as an opportunity to help bring global censorship into the spotlight of American politics. Will it work?"

i_frame writes "CNet is reporting on a recent Oracle bid for open-source database MySQL. They were unsuccessful." From the article: "'It all comes back to the question of cannibalizing an existing business,' O'Grady said. 'If you determine that to some extent it's inevitable, wouldn't you prefer that you do it, instead of your competitors?' O'Grady said Oracle could benefit from MySQL in the way that IBM has from its acquisition of Gluecode, a company that commercializes the open-source Geronimo Java application server software and competed with IBM's own proprietary WebSphere product."