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Submission + - Dattebayo Staff Member Killed During Search (dattebayo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous
Anonymous writes: [On Saturday] "...five members of the Dattebayo staff were arrested at the Baltimore Convention Center as they prepared for their panel as part of the Otakon Convention....following the earlier searches of several staff members' homes, the state police arrived at the homes of the remaining members who had been arrested in Baltimore this last weekend. However, when they arrived at the home of one of the staff members they were surprised to find that the member had removed all the hard drives from his computer and they now lay in pieces in a garbage bag. Frustrated officers then began to yell at that staff member and accused him of destroying evidence. When the staff member met their response with silence they decided to take him into custody. Family members looked on in shock as they tasered this individual repeatedly despite him not fighting back. Suddenly, the staff member began to convulse on the floor. Doctors would later say that the individual had suffered an epileptic seizure, possibly resulting from the repeated tasering. Officers claim they then mistook these convulsions for an attempt at escape and one of the officers fired his firearm, injuring the individual. The injured staff member, in handcuffs, was later transported to a local hospital...This morning at 02:43, Dattebayo staff member ImpSyn, also known as David Pryor, age 29, was pronounced dead."
Communications

Submission + - Tmobile offers a phone that can work as VoIP (iht.com)

Submitted by tyrealhsm
tyrealhsm writes: For $10 a month added to your bill, you can make unlimited calls anywhere you want. There is no charge outside of the $10. Whenever you are in a WiFi hotspot, you work in a VoIP mode and your calls are free. Need to make a long distance call to relatives? Your call while in VoIP mode is free. The service from TMobile even comes with (after rebate) a wireless router to give you access to unlimited free calls from your house anywhere you get a WiFi signal. So much for the iPhone... Heres the link to the article: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/05/technology/ 05pogue.php
Movies

Submission + - Backlash from a Canadian Moviegoer

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: For several weeks now Canadian Media plays right into the arms of the MPAA by propagating lies like "Canada is THE movie pirate ring of the planet". Obviously they never checked Asian countries. With such help the MPAA convinced the Canadian government to adopt legislation to treat Canadian moviegoers as criminals. What used to be illegal searches should now be performed by 16 year old kids.
But moviegoers will not be intimidated. Here is a women taking legal action against a cinema chain for the way she was treated in front of her little girls. (My translation of this French text)

"Outraged to be searched against her will, a lady from Montreal made a request for 60,000$ against the Guzzo cinemas. After a legal complaint against the managers of the establishment, she now intends to use the Quebec Charter [of rights and liberty] to have her rights recognized."[...]
Just before entering the projection room she was asked to open her bag, to which she was opposed. After she finally agreed, the employee "searches at full hands in a savage fashion de handbags".
"She had no intention to pirate a movie" she defends herself, since her bag did not contain a camera. She now asks for a 60,000$ in compensation and exemplary damages for her and her little girls.[...]

Against Pirates
This search constitute a legal security measure against pirates, according to Vincent Guzzo [...]. "Us, we have a real problem, he says, because of pirates the 20th Century Fox removed our Fantastic Four and Die Hard 4 from one of our theaters. Two of the three big block buster of the summer."

The moviegoer's lawyer states she was the victim of an abusive search "there are other ways to obtain the same result" suggesting X-Ray detectors.
"Do you know how much they cost? replies Mr. Guzzo, referring to 70,000$ airport equipment. Anyway we do not search everyone systematically. Security agents targets mainly men between 18 and 35, particularly when they carry knapsacks. We placed signs stating we reserve the right to search all bags."

Here to stay
The search is part of the mesure against pirates, an activity costing millions every year for Mr. Guzzo alone. In 2005 20% of illegal movies in the world came from Canada, according to the Canadian Movie Distribution Association. A fact [sic] the Harper [conservative] government intends to change. The law criminalizing pirate activities took effect on June 22.[...]
"We will continue these searches", claims Daniel Seguin VP exploitation at Cineplex Quebec and West-Canada. "We invite the public to tell our personnel if they witness any illegal recording activities in our theaters".
Privacy

Submission + - FIOS customer names/addys in public ARIN database (squirrelfish.org)

Submitted by
Tom Haines
Tom Haines writes: "Anyone with a verizon fios business account w/ static IPs will love to know that their account name and address are in the ARIN database associated with their IP address(es). maybe it's just me, but as a residential customer who only signed up for the biz service to get static IPs, this sucks. I didn't want my home address linked with my IPs. Not to mention, you can query ARIN using the term "FTTP" and get back a list of fios customers, including addresses. Hooray verizon!"
Television

Submission + - DVD Equivalent of FreeDB/CDDB 1

Submitted by
MightyE
MightyE writes: "I have an extensive collection of DVD's of television show seasons. It is ultimately dangerous to the disks to always be swapping them around, in and out of DVD drives, and general abuse arising from not always taking as good of care of them as I ought. I've bought a series of large capacity hard drives, set up a MD device (RAID) and have been using DVD::Rip to back up my DVD's to this space. (And boy is this so much more convenient when I want to watch a certain episode than it is to read many DVD cases looking for which disk an episode is on). I'm finding it's slow going though, and one thing that could speed this up dramatically is if there was an online DVD database similar to what FreeDB and CDDB are for audio disks. Is there such a thing? If not, may I recommend someone start one? Since I'm ripping my DVD's, I'd be happy to contribute my own data to it!"
Anime

Submission + - Dattebayo Fansub Staff Arrested at Otakon (dattebayo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Talk about overreaction, Dattebayo fansub reports that some of their staff was arrested on Saturday at Otakon. To make matters worse today's update describes the authorities shooting and tasering a staff member while searching his home.
United States

Submission + - Best Places to be a Nerd?

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: When it comes to picking a new place to live many important variables: living cost, job market, crime-rates, are available for those who look. But other things cannot be known without years of first-hand experience. For someone whose interests are often classified as geeky/academic, what are the best places in the United States (or elsewhere) to live? Where can you find a unique setting, with a vibrant geek community and plenty of opportunity to feed an intellectual hunger? Do you live in such a place? What are those subjective qualities which makes your town a nice (or not-so-nice) place to be a geek?
Movies

Submission + - New ReBoot movies in the works. 1

Submitted by codesmith
codesmith writes: With Rainmaker Animation's purchase of Mainframe Entertainment, it looks like theres new ReBoot material on the horizon. Rainmaker's executive VP Paul Gertz said 'I think it's time.' in regards to getting ReBoot going again. Plans are in the work for an online comic book, and three new ReBoot movies. See coverage from canada.com, Animation Magazine, and Cinema Blend.
Power

Submission + - First portable, practical fuel cell for consumers (venturebeat.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Trulite, a company in Texas, has developed a portable fuel cell for the consumer, contained in a box that powers everything from computer, to fridges and construction site power tools.

Costing around $2,000 initially, the environmentally friendly hydrogen fueled device measures a trim 7 inches wide, 18 inches tall, and 18 inches deep.

It is cleaner than alternatives, producing water and heat as its only byproducts. It will hit the market during the second quarter of next year. It will be one of the first consumer fuel cells on the market. It is designed to replace regular gas generators people have used until now, which are noisy and polluting.

Called the Trulite KH4, the cell produces 150 watts of continuous generating capacity and up to 200 watts of peak capacity. It carries two regular power outlets, and a DC outlet.
Privacy

Submission + - Merely "cloaking" data may be incriminatin

Submitted by n0g
n0g writes: In a recent submission to Bugtraq, Larry Gill of Guidance Software refutes (successfully or not, you decide) some bug reports for the forensic analysis product EnCase® Forensic Edition. The refutation is interesting, but one comment raises an important privacy issue: When talking about perps creating "loops" in NTFS directories to hide data, Gill says, "The purposeful hiding of data by the subject of an investigation is in itself important evidence and there are many scenarios where intentional data cloaking provides incriminating evidence, even if the perpetrator is successful in cloaking the data itself."

That begs the question, if one "cloaks" data by encrypting it, say, exactly what incriminating evidence does that provide? And how important is that evidence compared to the absence of anything else found that was incriminating? If you find an encrypted hard drive on my system, that doesn't mean there's pr0n in there, that's just to hold my bank records. No, seriously.
Handhelds

Submission + - Could the Cybook be the breakthrough E Ink device? (teleread.org)

Submitted by
David Rothman
David Rothman writes: "E Ink devices so far have been niche items, but could the new model of the Cybook change this and help kickstart the e-book industry? Scheduled to debut in September from Bookeen, it offers an improved E Ink display with more perceived text/background contrast via VizPlex technology — plus access to 50,000 titles in the Mobipocket format, or far more than available for the Sony Reader's BBeB format, thereby justifying the $350 for early adopters, as I personally see it. In the end I doubt that the Cybook alone will make the difference, since $350 isn't small change. But as someone who's been writing on e-books for years, I'd consider it a definite sign of progress. Also needed are an end to the Tower of eBabel of different e-book formats and either a DRM standard or — far far better! — an end to DRM."
Biotech

Submission + - Table Top USP Lasers Slice, Dice, and So Much More

Submitted by UltravioletLED
UltravioletLED writes: A company in Petaluma, California has developed highly programmable desktop lasers. The same device that is used in a hospital could also be used to turn any metal surface black by simply changing the software. The technology once filled a large room at DARPA until Raydiance scientists made it into a compact, tabletop unit. Schuler (The CEO) said he hopes it will replace just about any cutting device you can think of, from a big metal saw to a precise surgical blade...Now that it's a little bigger than a breadbox, researchers want to use them to kill tumors, identify friend or foe during combat, and even remove tattoos.Femtosecond lasers for eye surgery have been around for years now, but these new lasers are far smaller and promise to have much greater versatility.
Biotech

Submission + - Sex in the MRI (scienceblogs.com) 1

Submitted by ferespo
ferespo writes: The paper is all about visualizing the arrangement of organs during coitus. People have tried to figure out how the pieces all fit together internally using cadavers and their imagination, by using a speculum and poking around with their fingers, and by clever tools, like hollow glass tubes shaped like a penis. This paper tries something different: the investigators had people have sex in an MRI tube, and snapped a few pictures while they were at it.
Operating Systems

Submission + - Dell not shipping Ubuntu Linux machines

Submitted by zaufe
zaufe writes: Dell's wonderful Ubuntu system is not shipping. Been over a month since I requested to have one. Contacted many times regarding this and Dell simply says its delayed due to Linux coming on it. Don't count on getting one if you ordered one!
Quickies

Submission + - Cellphone "Phantom Vibration Syndrome" ... (usatoday.com)

Submitted by
Ant
Ant writes: "This USA Today article on what some call it "phantom vibration syndrome." Others prefer "vibranxiety" — the feeling when you answer your vibrating cellular/cell phone, only to find it never vibrated at all. Though no known studies have analyzed what may cause spontaneous buzzing. Some who experienced recurring phantom vibrations wondered whether the phenomenon had physical roots: Was it caused by nerve damage or muscle memory? But experts say the false alarms simply demonstrate how easily habits are developed. Psychologically, the key to deciphering phantom vibrations is "hypothesis-guided search," a theory that describes the selective monitoring of physical sensations, says Jeffrey Janata, director of the behavioral medicine program at University Hospitals in Cleveland. It suggests that when cellphone users are alert to vibrations, they are likely to experience sporadic false alarms, he says... Seen on Digg."

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