mebollocks - Slashdot User

Submission + - Windows Media Center restricts cable TV viewings

Submitted by PrescriptionWarning on Sunday May 20, 2007 @05:58PM

PrescriptionWarning writes: With the latest Media Center Edition update from Microsoft, many other users and myself are finding that content available on Television are now completely unwatchable from Media Center, with a message that simply states "Restricted Content: Restrictions set by the broadcaster and/or originator of the content prohibit playback of the program on this computer."

A simple search on the subject reveals that HBO programming and, in my case Braveheart on AMC, are among the many selections now restricted for playback or recording by Windows Media Center Edition. What's next, restricting every piece of programming on television? One thing is for sure, there won't be much left to watch.

Submission + - The Uncomfortable Reality of Sex in Space

Submitted by

Smaran

on Saturday May 19, 2007 @04:49AM

Smaran writes: "WIRED is running an interesting story about how sex in space will have to be inevitably discussed by space agencies and astronauts around the world, who currently refuse to even address the issue. They are only beginning to talk about the realities of illness and death in space. Sex is still a topic for another day. WIRED's Regina Lynn writes: "... as humans begin to spend more time in space and to travel further from Earth, space agencies will need to factor sex into their equations. We cannot expect astronauts to spend three years in a spacecraft and not have sex — of some kind. Probably with each other, and likely in more than one combination.""

Submission + - WoW Addiction Results in Death of Toddler

Submitted by Henry V .009 on Tuesday April 17, 2007 @09:18AM

Henry V .009 writes: The Albuquerque Journal reports that Federal authorities have just charged Rebecca Wulf for allowing her 3-year-old daughter to starve to death, surrounded by "cat feces, moldy food and unwashed dishes" while Rebecca played World of Warcraft. I thought Slashdoters might want an early heads up on what is likely to become a big news story. Having worked with abused children in the past, I can say that the stories I hear of WoW addiction cases are on the level of hard drug addiction stories — in my opinion at least, this can no longer be dismissed as a 'you can be addicted to anything' issue anymore.

Submission + - Microsoft admits the Xbox 360 scratches discs

Submitted by on Monday April 16, 2007 @07:47PM

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft admitted this after 2 broadcasts on the subject by the dutch television program Kassa. Microsofts states: "It is possible that scratches on discs can arise as a result of regular use." The hardware magazine that examined the complaints has some aditional information on the case. Dutch customers can get their consoles fixed, and broken games replaced. The situation for customers from other countries is unclear.

Submission + - Brits - Your Country is Watching You!

Submitted by

clickclickdrone

on Monday March 26, 2007 @11:18AM

clickclickdrone writes: "A new report has just been published by the Royal Academy of Engineering that shows the extent of monitoring of individuals in the UK. The 62 page report reveals the following stats — 4.2 million CCTV cameras — one for every 14 people with 300,000 new ones every year. The average Londoner is recorded 300 times a day. There are 6,000 speed cameras and 20% of the worlds CCTV cameras are in the UK. It goes on to note other ways to track people such as the 27 million store cards, Google searches, DNA records and 10 million Oyster travel cards that allow detailed accounts of people's movements and activities to be build up. See http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_articl e_id=42574&in_page_id=34 fpr more details."

Submission + - Study contradicts RIAA on cause of CD sales drop

Submitted by IBuyManyCd on Saturday February 24, 2007 @01:16PM

IBuyManyCd writes: A new research paper (PDF) published in the Journal of Political Economy contradicts the RIAA claim that illegal downloading is the main reason for the 25% drop in CD sales.
A quick overview of the article is presented on the University of Chicago Press site: Downloads are not the primary reason for the decline in music sales. "Researchers from Harvard and Kansas find that impact of P2P sharing on U.S. music sales is "statistically indistinguishable from zero".
The overview also quotes:
"We match an extensive sample of downloads to U.S. sales for a large number of albums", write Felix Oberholzer-Gee (Harvard University) and Koleman Strumpf (University of Kansas). "While file sharers downloaded billions of files in 2002, the consequences for the industry amounted to no more than 0.7% of sales."
The author compiled data on nearly 50,000 music downloads of popular songs (on pop charts) and across eleven genre from 2 major P2P servers. They then compared these with the same pop chart songs CD sales, "it is striking to see that more than 60% of the songs in our sample are never downloaded".
This underlines what many online users have lived first hand. If an album is good enough, reaching the pop chart, it will gladly be bought by fans.

Puretracks Music Store Drops DRM 236

Posted by kdawson on Thursday February 22, 2007 @12:15PM from the apple-could-do-this dept.

khendron writes "The Canadian online music store Puretracks (a store I have generally avoided because of their Microsoft-specific solutions) has announced that it will immediately start selling part of its catalog as DRM-free MP3 files. The site's unprotected catalog, which includes artists such as The Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan, will initially feature only 50,000 of its 1.3 million tracks, but their number will grow weekly. The Globe and Mail says the move will likely profit Puretracks because its DRM-free-music will be playable on iPods. It quotes one industry watcher saying 'We're seeing the death of DRM.'" Essentially Puretracks is relaxing the major-label mandated DRM rules that it had initially applied to all labels, even the indies that wanted no part of DRM.

MS vs AT&T Case Stirs Software Patent Debate 218

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 22, 2007 @08:52AM from the can-you-or-can't-you dept.

Stormwave0 writes "A Microsoft appeal against a decision for AT&T and their speech recognition patent has reached the Supreme Court. AT&T has argued that they did not license software using the patent for sales overseas. Microsoft, in the original case, argued "that it wasn't really liable for infringing on AT&T's licensing rights because it only supplied the golden disk to the replicator one time, and that disk did not really contain software in a usable form anyway." With that argument rejected, the case has moved in an unexpected direction. The court is now debating whether or not software is actually patentable."

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