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Editorial

Submission + - The New York Times Opening up (some) archives (nytimes.com)

Submitted by
webax
webax writes: "In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain. There will be charges for some material from the period 1923 to 1986, and some will be free (...) What changed, The Times said, was that many more readers started coming to the site from search engines and links on other sites instead of coming directly to NYTimes.com. These indirect readers, unable to get access to articles behind the pay wall and less likely to pay subscription fees than the more loyal direct users, were seen as opportunities for more page views and increased advertising revenue. link"
Microsoft

Microsoft Gives In To the EU 161

Posted by kdawson from the playing-nice dept.
An anonymous reader writes with word that Redmond Developer News is reporting that Microsoft has given in to EU threats of further fines. The company has opened up a whole host of protocols, including the Exchange protocol, under a license, the terms of which are not known. No other news outlet has picked up this story so far.
Portables

Submission + - Poor Wine Into Your Laptop And Get Away With It

Submitted by
Laptop Cleaning Guy
Laptop Cleaning Guy writes: "The bad thing about a laptop is that you tend to sit down with it at places where a computer actually doesn't belong. Like the livingroom, the garden, the kitchen or even in bed. That's the whole point with a laptop, that you can move around with, but unfortunateley we also often present our precious black boxes for unnecessary risks like enjoying a glass of wine in its precense. Accidents with beverages and laptops are a common cause for severe laptop damage. But you have a chance to get away with it, when following this laptop cleaning guide. Its author has even put one glass of wine and one glass of lemonade into a running laptop to proof his concept. See the additional video for the wet details."
Space

Submission + - 3...2...1... Economy Space Travel!

Submitted by
webax
webax writes: ""The 68-foot (21-meter) booster rocket called Falcon 1 lifted off at 9:10 p.m. EDT (0110 GMT Wednesday) from Omelek Island on a U.S. military missile test range at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands and successfully arrived in space minutes later." Article SpaceX.com "
Biotech

Submission + - Silencing brain activity with light

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: MIT scientists have figured out how to silence brain cells, simply using pulses of yellow light. This may offer a new, safe, way to treat treating Parkinson's, epilepsy, and psychosis — which are currently often treated through surgical removal of brain tissue. The paper was just published in a new Web 2.0 journal, PLoSONE, which allows any reader to comment on any paper. Check it out here.
Censorship

NFL Caught Abusing the DMCA 357

Posted by kdawson from the poorly-chosen-victim dept.
Implied Oral Consent writes "You know how the NFL puts up those notices before every game saying 'This telecast is copyrighted by the NFL for the private use of our audience, and any other use of this telecast or of any pictures, descriptions or accounts of the game without the NFL's consent is prohibited?' Well, Ars Technica is reporting that Wendy Seltzer thought that that was over-reaching and posted a video of the notice on YouTube. Predictably, the NFL filed a DMCA Take Down notice on the clip. But Ms. Seltzer knows her rights, so she filed a DMCA Counter Notice. This is when the NFL violated the DMCA, by filing another Take Down notice instead of taking the issue to court — their only legitimate option, according to the DMCA. Unfortunately for the NFL, Ms. Seltzer is a law professor, an EFF lawyer, and the founder of Chilling Effects. Oops!"
Graphics

Submission + - Free Blender Course From Tufts University

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Tufts OpenCourseWare is offering a free 3d modeling and animation course entitled 'Three-Dimensional Modeling, Animation and Rendering Using Blender 3D Software.' The course includes over 100 video tutorials in real media format and over 20 pdf tutorials. Just like MIT OpenCourseWare, all courses are free and there is no sign-up required.
Television

Submission + - CSI Victim of Drive-by DRM

Submitted by BillGatesLoveChild
BillGatesLoveChild writes: The Sydney Morning Herald reports Australian viewers have been plagued by their new Digital TVs mysteriously locking up. Strangely most of the lockups occurred on one TV station and one program in particular: CSI.

Although the TV station involved refused to confirm or deny it, it now appears to be because they were altering the digital TV transmission to prevent viewers from exercising their Fair Use Rights to copy it. The problem was initially reported with LG Brand TV sets, other Digital TV owners are reporting similar problems.

If a TV stations zealtory for enforcing DRM prevents viewers from watching their programs, isn't it time to set back and ask if the whole DRM crusade is completely broken? So far no one has suggested that affected viewers can download CSI ad-free off Bit Torrent anyway.
The Internet

Submission + - Are TelecommunicationsTying Arrangments Back?

Submitted by
MCTFB
MCTFB writes: "With the merger of AT&T (formerly SBC) and Bell South, many of the features of the Ma Bell Monopoly seem to be in full force. Nevertheless, telecommunications consumers now at least have the option of internet phone companies like Skype and Vonage, or do they?

According to an entry on the Technorabble Blog, the blog author claims that he was the victim of a tying arrangment from AT&T where in order to get DSL service, he had to effectively get voice service as well. AT&T of course does not officially claim that one must purchase voice service, in order to get DSL service (because this would be overtly illegal), but the pain the blog author went through just to get his voice service removed, suggests that there may indeed be a covert attempt by AT&T to make it so difficult for DSL consumers to get DSL service without voice service, that DSL consumers will think twice about even bothering with internet phone service from a company such as Skype or Vonage.

What if anything can be done about this other than have telecommunications consumers spend many, many hours on the phone just to get someone at the home office to change a few settings in their customer database entry that will painlessly give them the services that they actually want?"
Security

How Apple Orchestrated Attack On Researchers 389

Posted by kdawson from the no-way-to-win-friends dept.
An anonymous reader sends us to George Ou's blog on ZDNet for a tale of how Apple's PR director reportedly orchestrated a smear campaign against security researchers David Maynor and Jon Ellch last summer. Ou has been sitting on this story ever since and is only now at liberty to tell it. He posits that the Month of Apple Bugs was a direct result of Apple's bad behavior in the Maynor-Ellch affair. From the blog: "Apple continued to claim that there were no vulnerabilities in Mac OS X but came a month later and patched their Wireless Drivers (presumably for vulnerabilities that didn't actually exist). Apple patched these 'non-existent vulnerabilities' but then refused to give any credit to David Maynor and Jon Ellch. Since Apple was going to take research, not give proper attribution, and smear security researchers, the security research community responded to Apple's behavior with the MoAB (Month of Apple Bugs) and released a flood of zero-day exploits without giving Apple any notification. The end result is that Apple was forced to patch 62 vulnerabilities in just the first three months of 2007 including last week's megapatch of 45 vulnerabilities."
Space

Submission + - SpaceX Celebrates Launch of Falcon 1

Submitted by iamlucky13
iamlucky13 writes: Barely under a year since a fuel leak doomed their first launch, upstart aerospace company SpaceX has cleared the ground a second time with their Falcon 1 rocket. The flight proceeded smoothly until a roll control issue caused premature engine shutdown and loss of telemetry at T plus 5:05. News is currently limited to brief mission status reports. Although the ultimate fate of the rocket and payload are unknown, the company appears pleased with preliminary performance indications. "We in the Washington, D.C. office are celebrating with champagne," said company VP Gwynne Shotwell. "We don't have any information yet from the launch control center, but the Falcon clearly got to space with a successful liftoff, stage separation, second stage ignition and fairing separation."

The flight of the $7 million rocket was to demonstrate its capabilities for DARPA and included two NASA experiments. CEO Elon Musk noted many improvements had been made since the first launch attempt, and has cited similar challenges in the development of other rocket systems. A launch attempt yesterday was scrubbed to resolve telemetry issues with just 62 seconds left. Today's countdown was kept exciting by an automated abort after engine ignition due to marginal chamber pressure. The countdown was restarted after refueling the rocket, with launch at 01:10 GMT from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific.
Television

Submission + - Happy Stephen Colbert Day

Submitted by
Taramoor
Taramoor writes: "Happy Stephen Colbert Day from Oshawa Ontario! It's officially Stephen Colbert Day today in Oshawa, Ontario, rejoice and praise him today! Visit him on www.colbernation.com."
The Internet

Submission + - How do you re-sell a domain name?

Submitted by dclayman
dclayman writes: What's the best way to go about selling a domain? I've never sold a domain before. I just received a $400 offer for a domain I own (radicaltrust), but I don't know if I should sell it or auction it off. And if I auction it, what site should I use? eBay? I could really use the extra cash. I was hoping to get some ideas from others here at Slashdot.

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