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Software

Submission + - Chandler PIM reaches 1.0, loses financial support (chandlerproject.org)

Submitted by TuringTest
TuringTest writes: I was surprised to learn that Chandler, the open-source Personal Information Manager (covered on Slashdot after releasing some stable versions), has silently reached its 1.0 milestone this summer only to (or maybe because of) having its financial support removed at the end of 2008. Chandler inherits organization concepts from Lotus Agenda and is a brainchild of Mitch Kapor (of Firefox, EFF and Lotus fame). It shares an approach to unified information representation with recent PIMs like MIT's Haystack and KDE's Nepomuk. What happened to the persistent universal data storage that object-oriented desktops and metadata filesystems were never able to provide? Did it finally arrive as a userland application, and nobody cared?
Censorship

Submission + - wikipedia unblocked in china

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: wikipedia unblocked in china
Privacy

Submission + - YouTube to Begin Using Video Fingerprinting (lawbean.com)

Submitted by
Spamicles
Spamicles writes: "YouTube will begin testing video recognition technology in conjunction with Time Warner and Disney. Testing will begin next month in hopes that the software, designed to recognize copyright content in videos, will be ready to roll out later this year, the company said. Google, which now owns YouTube, had agreed to implement some kind of technology to identify copyright content on its site so it can remove pirated content or negotiate with owners for a license."
Censorship

Submission + - Yahoo censors Flickr images in Germany (flickr.com)

Submitted by janoc
janoc writes: Apparently not only China is censoring Flickr. Flickr has recently introduced filters to filter out images deemed inappropriate. Unfortunately, the filters are now forced also on the German users (together with Singaporeans and Korean users). Photos marked "moderate" or "restricted" are invisible even to their own authors if they happen to be in one of the restricted countries. However, users from elsewhere can still see them just fine if they disable the "Safe search" feature in preferences — this option is not available to Germans anymore. There is a large discussion about this issue going on here: link.
Software

Submission + - Bush names anti-open source lobbyist as counselor (pressesc.com)

Submitted by
Citizen Pain
Citizen Pain writes: "President Bush today appointed as his counselor a man who received $820,000 from Microsoft to lobby during negotiations over its antitrust settlement as well as to oppose the use, especially within the government, of "open source" systems such as Linux. Enron also paid him $700,000 in 2001 alone to lobby on the "California energy crisis" and thwart efforts to re-regulate the Western electricity market through price controls."
Patents

Submission + - Nokia Countersues Qualcomm (lawbean.com)

Submitted by
Spamicles
Spamicles writes: "Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone maker, has filed a patent infringement countersuit against Qualcomm Monday. Nokia filed the lawsuit in a Texas district court, and it is seeking damages and injunctive relief. Nokia stated that it believes the Qualcomm patents are not valid, as the alleged inventions have been patented or published by other companies before Qualcomm. It also said it does not believe Nokia's products infringe any of the patents."
Privacy

Submission + - Small-scale file sharers in Sweden "immune"

Submitted by t-n_dmkr
t-n_dmkr writes: A verdict today in the Appeal Court in Gothenburg, makes small-scale file sharers "immune". The 45-year old man who was accused of sharing four music files on DC++, was fined 20000SEK (~2000), instead of the prison sentence the prosecutor had demanded, which means that the police are not permitted to demand details of the addresses behind IP addresses and cannot carry out house searches.
The small-scale file sharers can now only be convicted if they go to the police and turn themselves in. Only if the file sharer could get a prison sentence are the police allowed to take further action.
The article in english. An article in swedish, another article in swedish.
Patents

Submission + - New Patent for keyboard video game control

Submitted by deathy_epl+ccs
deathy_epl+ccs writes: It's not real clear whether this guy's patent on controlling a video game using nothing but a keyboard's arrow keys is just a protest, a statement against the broken nature of the USPTO, or whether he genuinely believes he's managed to get a license to print money with the award of the patent, but we can at least take comfort that it wouldn't be likely to survive being challenged.

I first read about this over at GameSetWatch
Music

Submission + - Universal exec says 'music artists need us!' (zeropaid.com)

Submitted by Jared
Jared writes: Max Hole, President, Asia Pacific Region and Executive Vice-President, Marketing and A&R for Universal Music Group International recently gave his insight as to what he sees for the future of record companies. Says that record companies should get a cut of concerts, merchandising, sponsorship, song-writing, etc to make up for declining revenue in other areas, and that artists need them so they can take care of the business and marketing side so they can focus on their music.
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - Second Life Seeks Sensitive Data About Residents

Submitted by deviantphil
deviantphil writes: Linden Labs, the company that runs Second Life, is seeking to roll out a new age verification mechanism which among others things may require residents to turn over their Social Security Number, government ID, or other sensitive personally identifying data in order to access content which is "explicitly sexual or excessively violent in nature". This would be equivalent to requiring a person to give out their Social Security Number before purchasing a game rated "M".
Spam

Submission + - Utah Anti-Kids-Spam Registry a "Financial Fail

Submitted by
Eric Goldman
Eric Goldman writes: "A couple of years ago, Utah and Michigan enacted "Child Protection Registries" that allow parents to register kids' email addresses and then requires certain email senders to filter registered email addresses before sending their emails. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the Utah registry has been a "finanacial failure." Initially projected to generate $3-6 million in revenues for Utah, it has instead generated total revenues of less than $200,000, 80% of which has gone to Unspam, the for-profit registry operator. As a result, Utah's share of the registry's revenues: a paltry $37,445. Worse, Utah has spent $100,000 (so far) to defend the law from constitutional challenges."

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