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The Courts

Usenet Group Sues Dutch RIAA 90

Posted by Soulskill from the best-defense dept.
eldavojohn writes "With the Pirate Bay trial, it's been easy to overlook similar struggles in other nations. A Dutch Usenet community named FTD is going on the offensive and suing BREIN (Bescherming Rechten Entertainment Industrie Nederland). You may remember BREIN (along with the IFPI & BPI) as the people who raided and cut out the heart of eDonkey. This is turning into a pretty familiar scenario; the FTD group makes software that allows its 450k members to easily find copyrighted content for free on Usenet. The shocking part is that FTD isn't waiting for BREIN to sue them. FTD is refusing to take down their file location reports, and is actually suing BREIN. Why the preemptive attack? FTD wants the courts to show that the act of downloading is not illegal in the Netherlands. (Both articles have the five points in English that FTD wants the courts to settle.) OSNews has a few more details on the story."
Music

ASCAP Starts To Act Like the RIAA 272

Posted by kdawson from the rebrand-as-ashattery dept.
Scott Lockwood writes "Below Average Dave, a Dr. Demento style parody artist, has been shut down by the ASCAP. This collective, acting as badly as the RIAA, is now attempting to ignore the 2 Live Crew Supreme Court decision that parodies are new derivative works. Just like the RIAA, ASCAP seems intent on misrepresents the law. If you know anyone who can help BA Dave in his plight, please contact him." This artist doesn't have the resources to fight the ASCAP, even though the law is pretty clearly on his side. Anyone at the EFF or the ACLU interested?
The Internet

Bell Proposing Usage-Based Billing 238

Posted by samzenpus from the pay-the-man dept.
Idiomatick writes "Bell Canada is attempting to impose UBB on its wholesale customers. As Bell was given a last-mile monopoly in much of Canada by the government, they are required to follow rules set up by the CRTC; this includes leasing their lines to competitive ISPs. And they are given a directive by the CRTC to provide competitive speeds to said ISPs. Teksavvy has informed its customers that were this to go through, the current monthly cap would be quartered and the cost for exceeding it would be 'multiple times more than our current per Gigabyte rate of $0.25/GB on overages.' They have also helpfully included a link where you can send your comments/concerns to the CRTC directly."
Robotics

Robot Body Suit To Be Marketed In Japan 128

Posted by timothy from the we-all-want-exoskeletons dept.
destinyland writes "A Japanese company is preparing limited mass production of a cybernetic bodysuit which dramatically increases user strength up to ten times. The "Hybrid Assistive Limb" suit synchronizes movements of a mechanical exoskeleton to biological nerve signals detected by biopads on the body. (Originally envisioned for people with disabilities, the suit also has industrial applications, and the company is planning annual production of 400 units at $4,200 apiece.) Its battery life is five hours, according to the company's web site, which promises they're also opening an EU branch to begin sales outside of Japan."
Graphics

ATI, Nvidia Reveal New $250 Graphics Cards 84

Posted by timothy from the short-and-sweet dept.
ThinSkin writes "As part of their 'Spring Refresh,' both AMD and Nvidia reveal new $250 graphics cards, the Radeon 4890 and GeForce GTX 275. ExtremeTech takes both cards and runs them through a gamut of gaming and synthetic benchmarks to decide which card triumphs over the other. Long story short, the GeForce takes the cake with impressive performance at its price, while the Radeon didn't show a high improvement over the cheaper Radeon 4870."
Cellphones

iPhone App Refund Policies Could Cost Devs 230

Posted by Soulskill from the money-for-nothin dept.
CBRcrash writes "Apparently, if iPhone users decide that they want a refund for an app (users can get a refund within 90 days, according to Apple policy), Apple requires that developers give back the money they received from the sale. But, here's the kicker: Apple will refund the full amount to the user and says that it has the right to keep its commission. So, the developer not only has to return the money for the sale, but also has to reimburse Apple for its commission."

Comment Re:about (Score 1) 605

by ATMD (#27201351) Attached to: My longest stretch without sleep (catnaps count) ...

Mountain Dew purchased at an American airport

Heh, that's how I was first introduced to it. I'd been up for something like 18 hours by this time, and still had a lot of travelling ahead of me. I was thirsty, having rapidly consumed my minuscule quota of carry-on liquids, and just wanted something to drink. (I know now to take an empty bottle through security and fill it up later.) I'd heard about Mountain Dew, and it sounded tasty, so I deposited my first tokens of the unfamiliar, eagle-bearing currency into the vending machine. Out popped the green bottle, which I quickly drained. Curiously, I didn't feel tired any more. It was only later that I learned I had stumbled upon one of the most caffeine-laden popular soft beverages the civilised world has to offer. I just wish they sold it in the UK...

Incidentally, why was everyone at Denver International white, except for the baggage handlers, who were exclusively black? I hope it was just a coincidence of shift scheduling, rather than something a lot nastier and more deep-seated.

Comment Re:Space - application with today's Superconductor (Score 1, Troll) 71

by ATMD (#27191327) Attached to: New Type of Superconductivity Spotted

Don't you just love it when a bunch of pedantic nerds get hold of a subject like this? They all try to shoot each other down by finding ever smaller, ever more pathetic flaws in their predecessor's argument, when the truth is most of them have no more than a passing knowledge, probably gleaned from the Discovery Channel.

It's like the "5 scifi geeks clustered round a broken laptop" syndrome. None of them actually knows how to fix it, but they're damn well going to try, and tell everyone else how stupid their own approach is to boot. I just sit back and watch :)

BTW: Not trying to troll, although I realise this post kind of reads like one. I just get frustrated sometimes by the lack of perspective apparently suffered by some people in groups like this.

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