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United Kingdom

Submission + - UK Police Test "Temporarily Blinding" LASER (bbc.co.uk) 1

Submitted by esocid
esocid writes: Called the SMU 100 it costs £25,000 and sends out a three-metre "wall of light" that leaves anyone caught in it briefly unable to see. Designed by a former Royal Marine Commando, it was originally developed for use against pirates in Somalia. While tasers and CS gas work well over short distances the laser is said to be effective at up to 500 metres (1,640ft). Being targeted by the beam has been compared to staring into the sun before being forced to turn away.Paul Kerr, managing director of Clyde-based Photonic Security Systems, which came up with the design, said "If you can't look at something you can't attack it."
Youtube

Submission + - Corporate Claims On Public Domain YouTube Videos (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by esocid
esocid writes: Corey Doctorow has written a Guardian column, "The pirates of YouTube," about how multinational copyright-holding companies have laid false claim to public domain videos on YouTube. The videos are posted by the nonprofit FedFlix organization, which liberates public domain government-produced videos and makes them available to the world. These videos were produced at public expense and no one can claim to own them, but multinationals from CBS to Discovery Communications have done just that, getting YouTube to place ads on the video that deliver income to their coffers. What's more, their false copyright claims could lead to the suspension of FedFlix's YouTube account under Google's rules for its copyright policing system. This system, ContentID, sets out penalties for "repeat offenders" who generate too many copyright claims — but offers no corresponding penalties for rightsholders who make too many false claims of ownership.
Communications

Submission + - Bill To Let Telemarketers Call Mobile Phones (nydailynews.com)

Submitted by esocid
esocid writes: Current law bars telemarketing calls to cell phones unless the customer has given approval. The proposed change would allow prerecorded “informational” calls to be made to cell phones without consent, called the “Mobile Information Call Act” and would allow all sorts of nuisance calls to cell phones.
The sole Democratic sponsor stated

"Do we really want to stop FedEx or UPS using modern technology to deliver your holiday gifts on time? Of course not, but that is what we heard at the hearing is one consequence of this 20-year old law."

His statement is still at odds with the ability to give consent to receive such calls.

Comment Re:denied with costs? (Score 1) 159

by esocid (#38315300) Attached to: Apple Loses Tablet Battle In Australia

(Oh, and falsifying legal documents.)

Oh, I haven't heard this one. Go ahead, I could do with a laugh.

Altering the aspect ratio of images in legal documents to make differently shaped objects look like the Apple devices I believe is what he's referring to. And what do you mean it doesn't have a bezel. What do you call that area around the screen?
Space

Submission + - Looking To Primordial Black Holes For Dark Matter (physorg.com)

Submitted by esocid
esocid writes: The primary objective of NASA’s Kepler satellite, which was launched in March 2009 to orbit the Sun, is to search for Earth-like planets in a portion of the Milky Way galaxy. But now a team of physicists has proposed that Kepler could have a second appealing purpose: to either detect or rule out primordial black holes (PBHs) of a certain mass range as the primary constituent of dark matter. PBHs have been considered as a candidate for dark matter since the 1970s. They are thought to have formed during the early universe from density perturbations that may have resulted from inflation, phase transitions, and possibly even the collapse of string loops.
The searches for particle dark matter at the LHC, and others, have so far come up empty handed, so PBHs are becoming more likely as candidates.
Mars

Submission + - 'Google Earth' Like Application For Mars Surface (physorg.com)

Submitted by esocid
esocid writes: A new software tool developed by the HiRISE team in the UA's Lunar and Planetary Lab allows members of the public to download high-resolution images of the Martian landscape almost instantaneously and explore the surface of the Red Planet from their own desktops, similar to Google Earth. The images produced by HiRISE are in the gigabyte size range: Up to tens of thousands of pixels across and more than 100,000 pixels high, the images are big enough to be murals on your living room wall.

"You can really get into it in very interesting ways. The ability to see surface features from orbit around Mars and then to zoom right down onto the surface from HiRISE — that's breathtaking." said HiView developer Bradford Castalia
Science

Submission + - Quantum Effects Suggests Links In Photosynthesis (physorg.com)

Submitted by esocid
esocid writes: Researchers working together from the University of Chicago and Washington University in St. Louis, have found evidence that suggests quantum effects are at play in plants involving photosynthesis. Their paper, accepted in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that a link between coherence and the way energy flows in plants exists. They gist of it is that energy transfers, and where the reactions take place occur with "near unity quantum efficiency," which could change how physics and microbiology explain photosynthetic processes.

Submission + - Account of LAPD protestor's arrest (blogspot.com)

Submitted by bluefoxlucid
bluefoxlucid writes: There is now this account of Patrick Meighan's arrest in LA. The LAPD were brutal and abusive. Protestors were held without bail--bail was set, but not accepted, and there was no access given to legal council. Physical violence was used by police to provoke reflexive reactions to pain, which was then reacted to with more violence. I must be missing something here, because the police seem to find peaceful protesters more dangerous than rapists and murderers.

Comment Re:I realized this (Score 1) 99

by esocid (#38283924) Attached to: EU Targets Apple In Ebook Investigation
My thought was more towards inherent costs, and artificial supply/demand. Physicals carry not only costs to print, bind, but to distribute. Shipping 12 crates of books should cost more than uploading an e-book to a source. When the book is in short supply, and it is in demand, the cost should go up. That is practically an impossibility for an e-book. I'm not sure exactly where you're pointing me. I read through the ebook section and only saw this bit:

At the same time, something's going to have to give on pricing. Treating ebooks as a parallel imprint, equivalent to hardcovers or paperbacks, is insane. Rather, we need ebooks with variable pricing — moderately cheaper than the corresponding paper edition (to reflect the reduced cost of production), and dropping steadily over time.

I completely understand its more from publishers and retailers that this cost comes, and that what I'm specifically addressing/complaining about. Something which _should_ have less overhead, _should_ cost less. Even 2$ less would convince me to not buy in print. And again, that _should_ give more money to authors, although I doubt it does.

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