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Censorship

Submission + - Users Overtake Digg

Submitted by
econoar
econoar writes: "Well, digg pissed off their users, and the users have just fought back. I've never really seen anything like this on user run websites, but chaos is taking place over on Digg. As I have mentioned before, Digg is my favorite website out there, but after they banned me earlier today I got a little pissed. I submitted a story about a T-Shirt with the now famous HD-DVD hex key on it, and I was banned for "violating the terms of use". Stories were getting deleted and user accounts were being banned all because of a stupid HD-DVD copyright Hex code that can be used to unlock HD-DVD. Digg claimed that they could be sued and what not for it so they decided to censor all of the stories that had to deal with the key. The whole thing is just bull, you can't copyright a sequence of numbers and letters. People come to digg for the sole reason of not having to deal with censorship. The users have become pissed and now every story on the front page is about the HEX key. I'm not going to post it here, but you can go see for yourself. Oh, and not to mention that HD-DVD is a main sponsor on Digg's podcast, Diggnation, of which I am a fan of. Digg really screwed the pooch on this one. Don't fuck with your users. Submissions are now shut down on digg also."
The Internet

Submission + - The downfall of digg summarized by numbers.

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "There has been quite a bit of talk going on lately regarding the HDDVD code- Followed by C&D letters from HDDVD lawyers. For the most part, these are being ignored- However, Digg Has chosen to remove all story's containing the code, as well as banning any user who submits such a item. The community fought back, and now the entire homepage is being overrun by HDDVD story's and the site is failing. Is this the expected result from no moderation? Was this Doomed to happen? As of yet- Digg has no official response- However the damage already done is unspoken, with many users returning to age old sites such as slashdot and newcomers like reddit."
Censorship

Submission + - HD-DVD key censorship revolt at digg.com

Submitted by
earthforce_1
earthforce_1 writes: "It looks like the founders at digg.com have received and complied with a takedown notice regarding the HD-DVD master keys, and blocking accounts of some users attempting to repost the keys. Subscribers have revolted en-masse and have reposted the keys in at least a dozen story threads and thousands of comments in countless ways. They also modded up all stories about the censored keys until at one point, every single front page story was about the HD-DVD keys! Until the original story was taken down, it was modded up over 15,000 times, an all time record.

This has been a totally unprecedented subscriber revolt against the website moderators, and at least one story thread suggests one of the founders had taken promotional money from the HD-DVD consortium."
Wireless Networking

802.11n Draft 2.0 Approved by Working Group 105

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the stamp-of-approval dept.
[Geeks Are Sexy] writes "Yes folks, the 802.11 Working Group has finally approved Draft 2.0 of the 802.11n spec, bringing us a step closer to its final form. 'With the positive vote from the 802.11n Working Group, the Wi-Fi Alliance will now begin officially certifying equipment as being compliant with Draft 2.0. That's an important step, as official Draft 2.0-compliant gear is guaranteed to be fully compatible with the final 802.11n standard.'"
Businesses

Submission + - T-Mobile Hacker Penetrates Secret Service

Submitted by
eieken
eieken writes: "According to this article, "The US Secret Service, which played the dual role of investigator and victim in the drama, said Tuesday it couldn't comment on Jacobsen because the agency doesn't discuss ongoing cases". For a secret intelligence agency, makes me wonder what else they don't know about."
Power

Purdue Makes Trash To Electricity Generator 250

Posted by kdawson from the mister-fusion dept.
musicon writes "A group of scientists at Purdue University have created a portable refinery that efficiently converts food, paper, and plastic trash into electricity. The machine, designed for the U.S. military, would allow soldiers in the field to convert waste into power. It could also have widespread civilian applications in the future. Researchers tested the first tactical biorefinery prototype in November and found that it produced approximately 90 percent more energy than it consumed."
Programming

Submission + - Choosing to program or stay at home with the kids

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I have been back working for 10 months after taking a one year leave of absence to stay at home with our first baby. I loved it, but also love programming, so I went back to work. Now our second child is here, and I'm thinking about going back to being Mr. Mom for a few years until the kids are in grade school. My question is, if I quit doing software development for 5 years, how hard would it be to get back into it? I have six years experience now and a BS in CSci. Thoughts on what my chances would be of getting a job with a company at an entry level since my skills would probably be out of date? What could I do for a few hours per week to keep my skills at least somewhat up to date? Thanks.
Software

Submission + - Co-Processors Used for Bloatware

Submitted by
RX8
RX8 writes: "Velocity Micro Director of Product Development, Chris Morley says that system builders are taking advantage of the new Dual-Core processors and "load down their systems with extraneous software that you do not need and only chew up clock cycles. Microsoft has dubbed this bloatware "craplets," and they're worried it's going to ruin Vista's reception by the public. These craplets of course are revenue streams for the Tier 1s." Some of the worst manufacturers to do this include Dell and Hp. Microsoft is worried that this bloatware will lead consumers to blame Vista for the slowdown."
Emulation (Games)

January DS Homebrew Overview 54

Posted by Zonk from the non-standard-dual-screen-devices dept.
marcellizot writes "Handheld site Pocket Gamer has a new monthly DS homebrew review roundup, which kicks off today with an update on slot-1 hardware methods, plus a look at DS Motion, Lemmings on DS, Flashback DS, Tetris Attack DS and more. From the article: 'The latest hardware is the slot-1 type, which is a DS-sized card and requires no additional hardware or modifications to the DS. These are much simpler to use than slot-2 devices, but as the majority of homebrew was designed for the slot-2 hardware and it's ability to boot GBA software, there are some compatibility issues. They are thankfully being ironed out, and as slot-1 devices become the standard we fully expect that all new homebrew will be designed with them in mind.'"
Microsoft

Microsoft Sells Linux To Wal-Mart 245

Posted by kdawson from the devil-you-know dept.
Several readers wrote in to let us know that Wal-Mart is planning to buy SUSE Linux vouchers from Microsoft in the course of building out its infrastructure. These are the support vouchers that Microsoft must distribute to hold up its end of the bargain with Novell. Wal-Mart has been a customer of Red Hat Linux. CBR Online notes that the deal is not entirely unexpected because Microsoft's COO, Kevin Turner, is the former CIO of Wal-Mart.

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