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The Courts

First New Dismissal Motion Against RIAA Complaint 155

Posted by Zonk from the listen-to-it-on-npr dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Several weeks ago it was discovered that a California federal judge, in rejecting an RIAA application for default judgment, had dismissed the RIAA's standard complaint for failure to state a claim, calling it "conclusory" "boilerplate" "speculation" in Interscope v. Rodriguez. In the wake of that decision a New York woman being sued in Brooklyn federal court, Rae J Schwartz, has told the Court that she is making a motion to dismiss the complaint in her case, Elektra v. Schwartz. This is the first post-Interscope challenge to the RIAA's boilerplate, of which we are aware. This is the same case in which the RIAA had sent a letter to the Judge falsely indicating that AOL had 'confirmed that defendant owned an internet access account through which copyrighted sound recordings were downloaded and distributed'. Ms. Schwartz suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, but the RIAA has pressed the case against her."
NASA

Submission + - Antarctic ice sheet melt accelerating 1

Submitted by OriginalArlen
OriginalArlen writes: The rapidly diminishing extent of Arctic sea-ice has been widely covered here and elsewhere. Now NASA scientists using satellite data have published a paper in 'Science' demonstrating increased melting around the margins (mostly) of the Antarctic ice sheet. This is potentially much more serious, as the margins act as barriers, preventing the much larger land-borne ice-sheets sliding off the continent into the sea — causing a catastrophic 4-6m rise in sea-levels.
Television

Suit Seeks 'A La Carte' TV Channel Choices 350

Posted by Zonk from the truly-keeping-the-important-things-in-perspective dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A breathtaking lawsuit was filed this week against every major player in the 'for-pay' television industry. Every major broadband and cable company in the US was named in the federal suit, which seeks the right to obtain content piecemeal rather than in the large (and expensive) packages that cable companies offer as the only option right now. This follows closely on the heels of encouraging comments from the FCC chair that he supports this kind of service. 'The complex web of contractual arrangements among service providers and networks amounts to a monopoly or cartel that has "deprived consumers of choice, caused them to pay inflated prices for cable television and forced them to pay for cable channels they do not want and do not watch," [antitrust lawyer Maxwell M. Blecher] wrote in the complaint filed on behalf of cable subscribers in several states. The complaint, which alleges a conspiracy to monopolize as well as violations of federal antitrust laws, names nine plaintiffs, but Blecher wants the U.S. District Court to certify it as a class action.'"
Sci-Fi

Heinlein Archives Put Online 242

Posted by CowboyNeal from the plenty-to-read dept.
RaymondRuptime writes "Good news for fans of the late SF master Robert Heinlein, 2 months after his 100th birthday celebration. Per the San Jose Mercury News, 'The entire contents of the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Archive — housed in the UC-Santa Cruz Library's Special Collections since 1968 — have been scanned in an effort to preserve the contents digitally while making the collection easily available to both academics and the general public... The first collection released includes 106,000 pages, consisting of Heinlein's complete manuscripts — including files of all his published works, notes, research, early drafts and edits of manuscripts.' You can skip the brief article and go straight to the archives."
The Internet

Submission + - Virgin Mobile cites Creative Commons in defense (google.com)

Submitted by Dachannien
Dachannien writes: The AP reports that Dallas teenager Alison Chang was photographed flashing the peace sign at a church event, and the photo was later posted on Flickr by the photographer, church youth counselor Justin Wong. Imagine her surprise when the photo appeared on billboards and web ads touting Virgin Mobile Australia's text messaging service with the taglines "Dump your pen friend" and "Free text virgin to virgin" appearing near her image. Chang and Wong are suing Virgin Mobile Pty Ltd., Virgin Mobile USA, and Creative Commons Corporation for libel, invasion of privacy, and copyright infringement. For its part, Virgin Mobile stated its belief that the photos, published on Flickr under a Creative Commons license, were used in compliance with that license, although it's not clear how they complied the attribution requirement on a billboard or banner ad.
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - "Industry Standard" and Stacking Trays

Submitted by
Rimbo
Rimbo writes: "Suppose there's a place in the food court with a tray cart, the kind with the spring-loaded top that's shaped to fit a tray, designed for the storing of food court trays. Right above it, a helpful sign reads, "Trays," with an arrow pointing where the trays should be. Right next to that, there's a hooded trash can with seven trays stacked on top of it. For the sake of example, suppose the height of the trays just reaches the height of the tray cart, so there's no extra lifting or dropping involved to put a tray on either spot. What percentage of the population puts their trays with the others, on top of the trash can?"
Space

Submission + - Sunspots reach 1000 year peak

Submitted by rlp
rlp writes: Researchers at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich are reporting that solar sunspot activity is at a 1000 year peak. Records of sunspots have been kept since 1610. The period between 1645 and 1715 (known as the Maunder Minimum) was a period of very few sunspots. Researchers extended the record by measuring isotopes of beryllium (created by cosmic rays) in Greenland ice cores. Based on observations and ice core records, we are now at a sunspot peak exceeding solar activity for any time in the past thousand years.
Math

Submission + - Celebrating the HP-35 calculator with a new model

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Hewlett-Packard last week announced a contest whereby HP-35 fans create and submit videos of their favorite calculator memories. HP will choose the best videos and you can win a 50-inch, high-def plasma TV. But everyone wins, because HP this summer will debut a special new calculator model. The details aren't announced, however, it's likely to be a 35th anniversary edition of some sort. This was covered in Computerworld's new vintage technology blog.
Security

Submission + - Hacking Bluetooth With a USB Stick

Submitted by ancientribe
ancientribe writes: If there's one thing that has precluded hackers and researchers from cracking Bluetooth, it's been the $10,000 price tag of the sniffer tools involved to do so. But look out: European researchers have now broken that price barrier with a prototype hacking tool based on a $30 Bluetooth USB dongle. The USB-based sniffer tool lets you eavesdrop on a Bluetooth communication session, and teamed up with other tools, access encrypted data on Bluetooth devices.

http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=121 111&WT.svl=news1_4
Classic Games (Games)

Submission + - ScummVM Ported to Nintendo Wii

Submitted by Croakyvoice
Croakyvoice writes: Rodolfo Portillo has released a port of ScummVM for the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo Gamecube. ScummVM is a program which allows you to run certain classic graphical point-and-click adventure games like Simon the Sorcerer, Broken Sword and Flight of the Amazon Queen. You will have to use SD Load to run this on your console.
Space

Submission + - 2006 Annual Canadian UFO Report now out

Submitted by trelayne
trelayne writes: The 2006 Annual Report, which is compiled from various sources (including the Department Of National Defense and Transport Canada) attempts to scientifically categorize and analyze (for trends, etc.) Canadian UFO sightings and encounters. Among the most notable cases: An Air Canada Pilot encountering a fast moving light in front of his/her Boeing 767, automatically triggering its Tactical Collision Avoidance System; A man driving along a highway saw three orbs perform various maneuvers, including flying right by car.

According to the study, 2006 saw the third highest number of sightings since 1989 when the reports began. The provinces with the highest number of sightings included Ontario and British Columbia.

LucasArts Aims for #1 120

Posted by Zonk from the keep-climbing dept.
The New York Times has an interesting profile of LucasArts, the game development house attached to George Lucas' company. They discuss some challenges with being so closely associated with Star Wars, and detail their role in the Lucasfilm company as a whole. From the article: "[Ward's] most challenging days may be ahead. The videogame industry has been in the doldrums for months; video game sales are lagging as consumers wait to buy the next generation of consoles, including the PlayStation 3. And perhaps most important, Mr. Lucas has no plans to make any more 'Star Wars' movies. That means LucasArts will have to work that much harder to come up with ideas of its own. 'We are not the Star Wars game company,' said Micheline Chau, president of Lucasfilm. 'And Jim knows what he has to do.'"

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