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Submission + - Law That Allows Summary Closing of Websites Passed (elpais.com)

Submitted by Sir Mal Fet
Sir Mal Fet writes: In a very polemic move by the Spanish parliament, the infamous 'Sinde' law, already discussed here, was passed on December 31st. Albeit modified from their original version, the law will allow the Spanish government to request ISPs to summary close a website due to copyright infringment (Original in Spanish, Google translation). If the ISP refuses, then it's passed to court where a judge can order the website closed. It seems it's one good, one bad over there. The law is in public consult until March, and No Les Votes, a Spanish organization that opposes the law, has already started a campaign to boicot it (Original in Spanish; Google translation).

Submission + - Air Force UAV Controls Infected with Virus (defensetech.org)

Submitted by savuporo
savuporo writes: DefenseTech story "Air Force’s UAV ground control systems (GCS) at Creech Air Force Base, Nev., have been infected by a computer virus. The virus, that’s apparently recording drone operators’ keystrokes, was detected about two weeks ago. While it hasn’t prevented the service from flying UAV missions, it has proven to be difficult to remove — Air Force technicians are having to completely wipe the GCS’ internal hard drives to get rid of the virus. Service officials still aren’t 100 percent sure how it penetrated Creech’s firewalls nor do they know where it came from. It may be a run of the mill computer virus that somehow made its way into the base’s systems or it may be a sophisticated cyber espionage tool specifically targeting the U.S.’ drone program — no one knows yet."

No word on what OS or chipsets these systems were running, but its pretty safe to bet that it is not vxWorks or QNX or the like ..

Submission + - JavaScript decoder plays MP3s without Flash (geek.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The introduction of HTML5 and super-fast JavaScript engines to the latest web browsers has brought with it a wealth of new functionality. The focus seems to have been put on the ability to play video in a browser without Flash, or making games. But a project born out of a Music Hackday in Berlin is just as exciting.

It’s called jsmad and is a pure JavaScript decoder that allows you to play MP3s in a browser without Flash. So, for example, a music artist could create a website and upload songs for visitors to listen to without need of any plug-ins. Alternatively, why not have an MP3 jukebox that can play songs off your hard drive or Dropbox folder just by loading a website?

You can try out the decoder by visiting the jsmad.org website where there is a sample song, on the same site you can browse for your own local file to play. Be warned, it only works in Firefox 4+ at the moment, but Chrome support is coming and already works in some cases. Eventually we could see it work across all modern browsers.

Comment Already have a ten speed (Score 1) 128

by Captain Arr Morgan (#36267014) Attached to: CmdrTaco Visits Pixar
Well hey now, guys, look. I do not want to do anything illegal here... but I would kill somebody... in front of their own mama... to get a /. T-shirt. And if any witnesses testify against me, I'll gouge their eyes out. Otherwise you could come visit the Skype office in Palo Alto.
Programming

Submission + - Mr. Pike, Tear Down This ASCII Wall! 2

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: To move forward with programming languages, argues Poul-Henning Kamp, we need to break free from the tyranny of ASCII. While Kamp admires programming language designers like the Father-of-Go Rob Pike, he simply can't forgive Pike for 'trying to cram an expressive syntax into the straitjacket of the 95 glyphs of ASCII when Unicode has been the new black for most of the past decade.' Kamp adds: 'For some reason computer people are so conservative that we still find it more uncompromisingly important for our source code to be compatible with a Teletype ASR-33 terminal and its 1963-vintage ASCII table than it is for us to be able to express our intentions clearly.' So, should the new Hello World look more like this?

Submission + - Firefox 3.6 Taken Offline 4

Submitted by nateman1352
nateman1352 writes: Over at mozilla.com the Firefox 3.6 download link has been replaced by a link to Firefox 3.5.7. Moreover attempting to download the file directly from ftp.mozilla.org results in error 550 (Permission Denied.) What gives Mozilla?

Submission + - Neural Nets Make Art While High (arbornet.org)

Submitted by brilanon
brilanon writes: telepathic-critterdrug is a controversial fork of the open source artificial-life sim Critterding, a physics sandbox where blocky creatures evolve neural nets in a survival contest. What we've done is to give these animals an extra retina which is shared with the whole population. It's extended through time like a movie and they can write to it for communication or pleasure. Since this introduces the possibility of the creation of art, we decided to give them a selection of narcotics, stimulants and psychedelics. This is not in Critterding.

The end result is a high-colour cellular automata running on a substrate that thinks and evolves, and may actually produce hallucinations in the user.
NASA

Submission + - SPAM: NASA Mars rover Spirit has survivability option?

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: As NASA celebrates its Mars rover Spirit’s sixth anniversary exploring the red planet it is hunting for a way to keep the machine, which is mired in a sand trap, alive to see a seventh year. On its Web site, the space agency this week noted there may indeed be such an option. That option would be spinning the wheels on the north side of Spirit, letting it dig in deeper in the Martian sand but at the same time improving the tilt of the rover’s solar panels toward the Sun.
[spam URL stripped]
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Sparc sends Sparkfun.com C&D letter. (sparkfun.com) 1

Submitted by moogied
moogied writes: Sparkfun.com, a electronics component provider, has been sent a cease and desist letter by Sparc. The letter states "Because the dominant portion of the SparkFun mark, namely, SPARK, is phonetically identical and nearly visually identical to SI's SPARC mark, and because it is used in connection with identical goods, we believe confusion is likely to occur among the relevant purchasing group." Sparkfun.com has provided the entire contents of the letter on its front page, with a breakdown of points it feels are most relevant.
Space

Submission + - More Water Out There, Ice Found on an Asteroid (spacefellowship.com) 1

Submitted by Matt_dk
Matt_dk writes: For the first time, astronomers have confirmed that an asteroid contains frozen water on its surface. Analysis of asteroid 24 Themis shows evidence of water ice along with organic compounds widespread across the surface. The scientists say these new findings support the theory that asteroids brought both water and organic compounds to the early Earth, helping lay the foundation for life on the planet.

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