rsk - Slashdot User

Submission + - Judge allows subpoenas for GeoHot YouTube viewers (wired.com)

Submitted by

PhrostyMcByte

on Saturday March 05, 2011 @04:07AM

PhrostyMcByte writes: "Stepping up Sony's lawsuit against PS3 jailbreak developer George Hotz, this Thursday a judge approved multiple subpoenas which seek logs of all viewers and commenters to his YouTube video, visitors to his blog and website, and all information associated with his Twitter account."

Submission + - FBI Investigates MPEG-LA ! (macdailynews.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy on Saturday March 05, 2011 @02:02AM

Taco Cowboy writes: "The Justice Department is investigating whether a group representing some top technology firms is unfairly trying to smother a free rival technology for delivering online video that is backed by Google Inc." MPEG-LA, the private company that has set up patent pools around web video, had announced its intention to set up a patent pool focused on the patents that holders believe are infringed upon by Google's VP8/WebM video standard. This definitely seemed like a typical shakedown situation, with one company basically asking a bunch of others to team up to demand a bunch of cash from Google. The aim of the formal investigation is to find out whether MPEG-LA is using its considerable weight to shut out VP8, a rival and royalty-free video technology alternative that is backed by Google and supported by its software. "“Antitrust enforcers are investigating whether MPEG LA, or its members, are trying to cripple an alternative format called VP8 that Google released last year—by creating legal uncertainty over whether users might violate patents by employing that technology, these people added,” Catan reports. “The probe, which pits Google and open-source software advocates against some technology giants like Apple, could help determine whether anyone will own rights over the creation and broadcast of online video in the next major Web programming language, called HTML 5." Microsoft and Apples are members of the MPEG-LA group, btw. Other links to this story include: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2031430/justice-department-peers-anti-google-video-cartel http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2011/mar/04/justice-department-antitrust-mpeg-la-vp8 http://macdailynews.com/2011/03/04/us-doj-investigates-mpeg-la-over-claims-of-stifling-googles-vp8-video-codec/ http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110304/02364313363/justice-department-investigating-mpeg-la-antitrust-violations-over-vp8-patent-threats.shtml

Submission + - Easy to Use and Full Featured LightScribe Software (lightscribetoolbox.com)

Submitted by TrafalgarSteve on Friday February 25, 2011 @07:10PM

TrafalgarSteve writes: The Best LightScribe software should allow you to add images, and text wherever you want. This LightScribe software does just that. Create the labels you have always wanted.

Submission + - BTDigg, ‘Trackerless’ Torrent Search E (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Friday February 25, 2011 @05:10PM

Anonymous Coward writes: "The Internet is filled with thousands of BitTorrent sites which all search through databases containing millions of torrent files. Today these sites are joined by a new one – BTDigg. However, unlike more traditional torrent search engines, BTDigg searches through files that are found on BitTorrent’s DHT network, which is rather unique. According to the site’s founders this is a much needed step to further decentralize BitTorrent"

Submission + - GeoHot: "Beating Them In Court Is Just A Start"

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 25, 2011 @05:07PM

An anonymous reader writes: PlayStation 3 jailbreaker George Hotz, also known as GeoHot, was recently on The Alyona Show. When asked about whether he thinks the whole issue will blow over and whether he has a chance to beat Sony in court, GeoHot responded with the following:

"Oh without a doubt. I think I will beat them. I think the reason they brought this suit is just to harass me and 'this is what happens to you if you hack Sony products.' Beating them in court is just a start."

Submission + - Young Patients to Get Best Kidneys Under New Rules

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens writes

on Friday February 25, 2011 @04:39PM

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The Washington Post reports that instead of giving priority primarily to patients who have been on the waiting list longest, new rules proposed by the nation's organ-transplant network would match recipients and organs to try to maximize the number of years provided by each kidney — the most sought-after organ for transplants. The current system, which dates to 1986, was first based largely on giving kidneys to the patients who matched the organs best, but it evolved to take a first-come, first-served approach made possible by safer, more powerful anti-rejection drugs. "It was just a fairness issue," says Kenneth Andreoni, an associate professor of surgery at Ohio State University who chairs the committee that is reviewing the system for the United Network for Organ Sharing. "You're next in line. It's your turn." The proposed changes, which would be part of the most comprehensive overhaul of the system in 25 years, are being welcomed by some bioethicists, transplant surgeons and patient representatives as a step toward improving kidney distribution but some complain that the new system would unfairly penalize middle-aged and elderly patients at a time when the overall population is getting older. "The best kidneys are from young adults under age 35 years. Nobody over the age of 50 will ever see one of those," says Lainie Friedman Ross, a University of Chicago bioethicist and physician. "There are a lot of people in their 50s and 60s who, with a properly functioning kidney, could have 20 or more years of life. We're making it harder for them to get a kidney that will function for that length of time. It's age discrimination.""

Submission + - Sony Taking the Low Road w/ PS3 Hackers (thebuzzmedia.com) 1

Submitted by

rsk

on Friday February 25, 2011 @03:40PM

rsk writes: "Since the PS3 MetLdr key was exposed by GeoHot and the fail0verflow group presented the PS3 DRM being subverted, Sony has been on a legal rampage to murder the cat now that it is out of the bag at all costs; one of those costs being a violently-degraded customer image.

Occurring right along side this event is Microsoft's response to Kinect hacking: "Cool, here is an SDK!"; not what I would have expected.

Given that the fight over DRM is an age-old battle (even on consoles) and there is plenty of market history to pull from to see what happens over time, isn't the right move for Sony to just suck it up, innovate and move forward?"

Submission + - Video interview with Jim Zemlin, Linux Foundation (blogspot.com)

Submitted by

Jeremy Allison - Sam

on Friday February 25, 2011 @03:10PM

Jeremy Allison - Sam writes: "Here is a video interview I did with Jim Zemlin, head of the Linux Foundation and Linus Torvalds boss (in theory). Jim articulates his vision of "Linux everywhere", which is really compelling as a mission statement.

Half hour interview (sorry about the background noise, we really need to use a proper studio for this, not just sit outside Chris DiBona's office :-).

Jeremy."

Submission + - GlassPoint Uses Solar Power to Pump Oil (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 25, 2011 @02:59PM

An anonymous reader writes: Solar power and oil may seem like twocontradictoryenergy sources, but GlassPoint has found a way to bring these two elements into an unlikely alliance. Just last Thursday the company unveiled a pilot facility that uses the latest solar technology to draw oil out of an old field located in Kern County, California. GlassPoints’ system uses the sun to heat water to create 750-degree-Fahrenheit steam, which seeps into underground rock. Once there, it reduces the viscosity of thick crude oil to allow for easy extraction

Submission + - PayPal Reinstates Fund for Wikileaker Manning (itworld.com)

Submitted by

itwbennett

on Friday February 25, 2011 @01:57PM

itwbennett writes: "PayPal has lifted a temporary restriction placed on the account of Courage to Resist, a group raising funds to support the legal defense of U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who was arrested for allegedly downloading classified information and providing it to WikiLeaks. As you may recall, PayPal was embroiled in controversy late last year when it shuttered an account for WikiLeaks amid the controversy over the expose of U.S. State Department documents. PayPal communications director Anuj Nayar, said in a blog posting that the decision 'had nothing to do with WikiLeaks'."

Submission + - AMD's Fusion APU pitted against 21 desktop CPUs (techreport.com)

Submitted by crookedvulture on Friday February 25, 2011 @01:37PM

crookedvulture writes: When AMD unveiled the Bobcat CPU architecture behind its first Fusion APUs, the company claimed its Atom-killer would achieve 90% of the performance of mainstream desktop processors. But does it? This article compares the AMD E-350's performance to more than 20 desktop CPUs between $87 and $999 to find out, and the results aren't particularly encouraging. Although Fusion offers much better integrated graphics than Intel's latest Atom, neither stands much chance of keeping up with even low-end desktop CPUs. The E-350 does offer very low power consumption and impressive platform integration, making it a good choice for home-theater PCs and mobile systems. Desktop users are better off waiting for Llano, a Fusion iteration due out this spring.

Submission + - First Ever HIPAA Fine is $4.3M (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7 on Friday February 25, 2011 @12:34PM

Trailrunner7 writes: The health care industry's toothless tiger finally bared its teeth, as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a $4.3 m fine to a Maryland health care provider for violations of the HIPAA Privacy Rule. The action is the first monetary fine issued since the Act was passed in 1996.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a Notice of Final Determination to Cignet Health care of Temple Hills, Maryland on February 4. The notice followed a finding by HHS's Office of Civil Rights that Cignet failed to provide 41 patients with copies of their medical records and for failing to respond to requests from HHS's Office of Civil Rights for information related to the complaints.

Submission + - Why Faster-than-Light Travel is Impossible (reddit.com) 1

Submitted by

rsk

on Monday February 21, 2011 @06:23PM

rsk writes: "reddit user purpsicle27 asked "Why exactly can nothing go faster than the speed of light?" and got a slew of excellent replies. One reply in particular, by user "RobotRollCall" (RRC), was a favorite thanks to its simplification of an inherently complex matter and easy to understand examples.

According to other reddit folk, RRC has been notoriously tight-lipped about his real identity but continually drops excellent written comments into the community from time to time. reddit user mazsa suggested that RRC is actually popular science author Brian Greene, author of the The Fabric of the Cosmos. I don't know if that is true, but the reviews from his existing books seem to suggest that the easy-to-understand style is a very Greene trait."

Submission + - Android Honeycomb Born Too Early

Submitted by adeelarshad82 on Monday February 21, 2011 @06:08PM

adeelarshad82 writes: This year's Mobile World Confress was the stage for dozens of new tablets, unfortunately though Android Honeycomb tablets lacked presence to the extend that amongst the top Android tablets showcased at the show, only Motorola Xoom was running Honeycomb where as others were running either Android 2.3 or older versions. Moreover most of the top apps announced for the OS were not new; just reworked. Gigaom may believe that Honeycomb tablets will be iPad's true competition but in my opinion progress has been slow. Honeycomb was born too early, primarily out pressure of iPad getting a one year head start in the tablet industry.

Submission + - Netbeans 7 without JUnit, legally speaking (blogspot.com)

Submitted by

JR0cket

on Monday February 21, 2011 @03:37PM

JR0cket writes: "Trying out the latest Netbeans 7 beta 2 release, you quickly see the gentle influence of the Oracle lawyers have had on the Netbeans development team. JUnit testing framework is no longer distributed with Netbeans 7 onwards.

All is not lost though as the first time you run Netbeans 7 you are immediately prompted as to whether you want to install the JUnit testing framework into Netbeans, via the Netbeans plugin for JUnit. As JUnit is pretty much standard for all Java development these days, it seems a strange thing to ask, but when legal concerns get in the way of common sense I guess these things happen. You can still install the Netbeans plug-in later on if you choose not to do it straight away, or if you are not connected to the Internet and therefore cannot connect to the Netbeans "app store" for plugins.

As has been previously reported by NetBeans Platform Architect Jaroslav Tulach, Oracle lawyers are concerned by the overly constrictive conditions of the Common Public Licence used by JUnit and have caused a hold-up on the Netbeans 7 release. This CPL license could be interpreted to mean that if Oracle ever sues a contributor to JUnit for patent infringement, then all patent licenses granted to Oracle by that contributor could be revoked. So the license certainly seems restrictive if you are in the litigation business.

According to Kent Beck, if the CPL license is a big enough problem to get lawyers involved, then its an important enough reason to buy a commercial licence. Unless Oracle wants to pay for a commercial license, pay to get JUnit re-licensed or forget about suing anyone contributing to JUnit, then I guess the Netbeans team will have to keep their work-around.

At least it seems that Netbeans 7 is back on track now and fingers crossed that Oracle decides it will not sue anyone who contributes to JUnit."

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