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The Courts

Submission + - RIAA Moves to Keep Revenue Info Secret (blogspot.com) 1

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "In the Boston, Massachusetts, case, SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, the Court had ordered the RIAA to produce certain revenue information, which would be relevant to a determination of the 'fair use' defense. The RIAA has now moved for a protective order to keep the information 'confidential'. In the opinion of the undersigned, the fact that the motion is made jointly by four competitors shows that any claim the information is valuable or 'proprietary' would be unfounded, and the sole purpose for making the motion is to keep the information out of the hands of lawyers for other defendants, thus increasing the defense costs in other cases."
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Americans do not agree with science (yahoo.com) 2

Submitted by
ZeroSerenity
ZeroSerenity writes: "In a not so stunning article, it is thought by many that science is not something you have to agree with. A survey conducted by Pew Research Center states that "...nearly 9 in 10 scientists accept the idea of evolution by natural selection, but just a third of the public does. And while 84 percent of scientists say the Earth is getting warmer because of human activity, less than half of the public agrees with that." In addition just 27% of the respondents said that the advances of the US in science are its greatest achievement, down from 44% ten years ago. I fear for my own country's progress if people aren't this interested in science."
Input Devices

NYU Researchers Create Cheap, Flexible Pressure-Based Interface 55

Posted by timothy from the where-would-you-put-it? dept.
Al writes "A super-cheap, thin and flexible touch interface developed by researchers at New York University and could be used to add touch sensing to all sorts of gadgets and devices. It measures a change in electrical resistance when a person or object applies different pressure. The "Inexpensive Multi-Touch Pressure Acquisition Devices (IMPAD)" consists of two sheets of plastic containing parallel lines of electrodes. The sheets are arranged so that the electrodes cross, creating a grid and each intersection acts as a pressure sensor. The sheets are also covered with a layer of force-sensitive resistor (FSR) ink, a type of ink that has microscopic bumps on its surface. So, when something coated in the ink is pressed, the bumps move together and touch, conducting electricity."
The Media

Should Google Be Forced To Pay For News? 322

Posted by timothy from the according-to-his-need dept.
Barence writes "The Guardian Media group is asking the British government to investigate Google News and other aggregators, claiming they reap the benefit of content from news sites without contributing anything towards their costs. The Guardian claims the old argument that 'search engines and aggregators provide players like guardian.co.uk with traffic in return for the use of our content' doesn't hold water any more, and that it's 'heavily skewed' in Google's favour. It wants the government to explore new models that 'require fair acknowledgement of the value that our content creates, both on our own site (through advertising) and "at the edges" in the world of search and aggregation.'"
Biotech

Scientists Make Artificial Protein Mimic Blood 94

Posted by timothy from the this-is-cool-stuff dept.
Al writes "Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have created a protein that can carry and deliver oxygen — a useful step towards developing artificial blood. This would avoid the problems involved with donor blood — contamination, limited storage, and short supply — and lead to easier and faster blood transfusions on the battlefield and in trauma cases. The Penn researchers used three amino acids to make a four-helix columned protein structure put a smaller structure, called a heme, inside it. The heme is a large flat molecule that has an iron atom at its center, which oxygen binds to. The researchers also made the protein structure flexible, so that it can open to receive the oxygen and close again without letting any water in. They did this by linking together the helical columns with loops to restrict their motions, giving the final structure a candelabra shape."
Software

Ubuntu vs. Windows In OpenOffice.org Benchmark 262

Posted by timothy from the permutations-of-permutations dept.
ahziem writes "Ubuntu's Intrepid Ibex and Redmond's Windows XP go head-to-head in an OpenOffice.org 3.0 performance smackdown measuring vanilla OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, Go-oo, and Portable OpenOffice.org 3.0. Each platform and edition does well in different tests. Go-oo is known for its proud slogan "Better, Faster, Freer," but last time with OpenOffice.org 2.4 on Fedora, Go-oo came in fourth place out of four. Slashdot has previously reported Ubuntu beating Vista and Windows 7 in benchmarks, so either XP is faster or this benchmark carries a different weight."
Space

Cold War Standoff Over ISS Toilet 417

Posted by timothy from the can't-even-agree-on-a-name dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The International Space Station, once a place where astronauts would share food and facilities, is said to be embroiled in a Cold War-like stand-off after a Russian cosmonaut complained he is no longer allowed to use a US toilet or the US gym machine. Gennady Padalka, a veteran Russian cosmonaut, says that space officials from Russia, the United States and other countries now require cosmonauts and astronauts to eat their own food and follow stringent rules on access to other facilities, including lavatories. Padalka, who will be the station's next commander, says the arguments date back to 2003, when Russia started charging other space agencies for the resources used by their astronauts and other partners in space station responded in kind. 'Cosmonauts are above the ongoing squabble, no matter what officials decide,' says Padalka. 'We are grown-up, well-educated and good-mannered people and can use our own brains to create normal relationship. It's politicians and bureaucrats who can't reach agreement, not us, cosmonauts and astronauts.' While sharing food in the past helped the crew feel like a team, the new rules oblige Russian cosmonauts and US astronauts to eat their own food. 'They also recommend us to only use national toilets,' says Padalka. 'What is going on has an adverse effect on our work.'"
Books

Questions Linger Over Google Book Rights Registry 107

Posted by kdawson from the disintermediation-writ-large dept.
We've discussed the fallout from Google's settlement with the Authors Guild a few times already. Now the issue is made pointed again by a Wall Street Journal editorial claiming that the settlement will ruin a functioning copyright system if it is finally ratified, as expected, in June by a federal court. Reader daretoeatapeach writes: "In the US this will establish a Book Rights Registry where authors can opt-in to 63% of the revenues of each book, the rest going to Google. While previously Amazon had cornered the market on e-books, Google's partnership with Sony will create a serious dent: 500,000 books to Amazon's 250,000. Though Google is currently only releasing the books that are in the public domain, they ultimately plan to sell the 7 million e-books they've scanned (and counting). This raises a lot of questions about the future of publishing: Do we want only one company (e.g. Google) controlling access to information? Should publishers get a cut of the money, at least as long as their book is being scanned? Will broader access to trade journals affect their relationship and reliance on libraries? If, in the future, more authors opt out of the traditional publishing model, when will this hit the 'recession-proof' book industry? And has the publishing industry learned any lessons from MP3s?"
Security

Submission + - Massive hack attack on Swedish sites (aftonbladet.se)

Submitted by
Sobieski
Sobieski writes: "Swedish newspapers are reporting that the night between Friday and Saturday, a mass hacking on Swedish websites occured. The attack is said to have affected almost 4000 sites and according to an article in the newspaper Aftonbladet, the hackers have set up a page to which all hacked sites were redirected. The page supposedly contained a list of all the hacked websites and a taunting message to their "competition" that according to them "only" managed to hack around 1600 sites."
Google

Submission + - Tokyo Demands Youtube Play Fair

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "Sometimes I think Google does more negotiating with foreign countries than the United States government. Recently, Tokyo has requested for political speeches to be pulled from the site claiming that it gave certain hopefuls an advantage over others for Sunday's election. You may recall Youtube being in trouble with more than couple countries. Is it fair that some government officials are being viewed more on Youtube than others or is it simply leveling the playing field for anyone with a message since it costs very little to put a video on Youtube? American politics seem to have embraced it either way."
Privacy

Submission + - Online privacy invasion by Adobe Inc.

Submitted by
Rafael Quawrells Sr.
Rafael Quawrells Sr. writes: "Dear Editor, I am an assistant network administrator whom is employed by a south-central Nebraska Internet Service Provider. I got off work today at 5pm and followed my normal routine, I arrived at home, I sat down to my personal computer on my private home network and began checking email. As I was performing my normal daily activities, my pc was idle, yet I notice my DSL modem passing a huge amount of traffic from the Internet. Being that I have quite an extensive knowledge of the Internet and it's associated protocols, I began with searching my private network's firewall. The first thing I noticed was over 7000 connections from a popular company known as Adobe Inc. As you can imagine I was very concerned as to why Adobe would need over 7000 connections to my private home network. I was able to pin down the IP address subnet of the device on Adobe's network. All of the connections were coming from 2 IP's within Adobe's subnet. The IP range is 192.150.18.0/24 which allows 256 addresses minus 2, 1 for the network and 1 for broadcast. The devices that had connections were coming from 192.150.18.118 and 192.150.18.60. Once I had aquired this bit of information, I picked up the phone and contacted Adobe's technical support. Of course I played the waiting game on hold for a grand total of 1.25 hrs. I spoke with a technician in this department named Caitlin who quickly assured me that Adobe does not scan private networks for anything without the consent of the owner of the network. I begged to differ. I explained to Caitlin that I have detailed firewall logs that indicate multiple devices on Adobe's network that was invading my privacy. She quickly suggested that I speak to another technician and I was once again playing the waiting game on hold. After the lengthy hold, I now had a gentleman by the name of Mike on the phone who also assured me that Adobe does not scan private networks for any reason. I was beginning to become upset. The technical support department of Adobe is basically calling me a liar, when I have the firewall logs right before my eyes. Mike was very rude, finalizing the conversation by hanging up in my face. I then turned to Jim Fitzgerald whom is this IP range's technical contact. I left a message on his voicemail, and have yet to receive an return call. Is it typical practice of Adobe Inc. to illegally invade individual's privacy and scan their private networks? And if so, what was Adobe Inc. looking for? I at no time gave Adobe or any sub-division within, any consent to scan my private home network for anything. Any answers would be greatly appreciated. Sincerely, Confused and somewhat violated in Grand Island, Nebraska"
Microsoft

Submission + - Creative in Vista-driver apology storm

Submitted by Shemmie
Shemmie writes: Anyone following Creatives progress at creating sound drivers for Vista will have noted it's been a long and convoluted history. Their support forum is filled with angry and confused customers, some of whom have simply given up waiting for fully working driver release. A thread about contacting Customer Support got closed.

One of their moderators apparently apologized to the angry mob for Creatives SNAFU at dealing with this — and promptly had his message, and replies to his message taken down in an apparent "Over-ruled" decision by Creative.

What is going on at Creative?

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You must realize that the computer has it in for you. The irrefutable proof of this is that the computer always does what you tell it to do.

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