Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Education

Submission + - 'Floating Bridge' Property of Water Found (physorg.com)

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "When exposed to high voltage, water does some interesting things. From the article, ' When exposed to a high-voltage electric field, water in two beakers climbs out of the beakers and crosses empty space to meet, forming the water bridge. The liquid bridge, hovering in space, appears to the human eye to defy gravity. Upon investigating the phenomenon, the scientists found that water was being transported from one beaker to another, usually from the anode beaker to the cathode beaker. The cylindrical water bridge, with a diameter of 1-3 mm, could remain intact when the beakers were pulled apart at a distance of up to 25 mm.'"
United States

Submission + - New city law impounds cars with loud stereos 3

Submitted by SaDan
SaDan writes: On August, 20th this year, a new law was passed in Rockford, IL, that grants police the authority to impound any vehicle reported for having a stereo turned up too loud:

"Cars taken will be held until fines of $150 to $750 are paid — in addition to a $75 towing fee, a $15 to $20 per day storage fee and a $60 per hour charge if the police officer has to wait more than an hour for the tow truck."

Anyone who has their car impounded is in for a long wait, in addition to the fees previously mentioned. After requesting a hearing, the city can wait up to 45 days before going to trial, accumulating around $1100 in impound fees. An article, with PDF of the recently passed law, can be found here.
The Courts

Submission + - Florida Judge OK's Claims Against Record Companies (blogspot.com)

Submitted by NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: A federal judge in Tampa, Florida, has ruled that an RIAA defendant's counterclaim against the record companies for conspiracy to use unlicensed investigators, access private computer records without permission, and commit extortion, may move forward. The Court also sustained claims for violations of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act as well as a claim under Florida law for deceptive and unfair trade practices. The decision (pdf) by Judge Richard A. Lazzara in UMG v. DelCid rejected, in its entirety, the RIAA's assertion of "Noerr Pennington" immunity, since that defense does not apply to "sham litigations", and Ms. Del Cid alleges that the RIAA's cases are "sham".
Media

Submission + - MediaDefender Leaks Saga : unexpected outcomes (p2pnet.net) 4

Submitted by ShakaZ
ShakaZ writes: Following the leaks of all the internal emails and later the source code of all the anti-p2p software of MediaDefender, the boss and an employee of the company have been arrested by the LA police. They are charged for illegal uploading with intent to deceive, bandwidth theft, and grievous misrepresentation.
More handcuffs there : http://www.p2pnet.net/story/13397

Due to the released emails, ThePirateBay have proof of infrastructural sabotage, denial of service attacks, hacking and spamming, for which they filed a complaint to the Swedish police. 10 companies of the music, movie and gaming industries are listed in the complaint.
More pirates here : http://thepiratebay.org/blog
Privacy

Submission + - 'Opt Out' soon or Verizon will sell your CPNI 1

Submitted by
Rothfuss
Rothfuss writes: "I actually opened and read one of the 'Updates to my Customer Agreement Terms and Conditions' that I received from Verizon today. I have no idea why. This one explains that they will be upgrading my service by assuming (unless I tell them otherwise) that I am willing to let them sell my Customer Proprietary Network Information or give it to anyone they choose. Apparently that will help me. However, the FCC won't let them do this without your permission — like, for example *not* calling them and opting out. If you are a Verizon customer and would like to opt out, you can do so by calling 1-800-333-9956. Ask to speak to Mr. Prosser."
Security

Submission + - Hacked Bank of India Site Labelled Trustworthy (beskerming.com) 1

Submitted by
SkiifGeek
SkiifGeek writes: "When the team at Sunbelt Software picked up on a sneaky hack present on the Bank of India website, it became a unique opportunity to see how the various anti-phishing and website trust verification tools were handling a legitimate site that had been attacked.

Unfortunately, the results showed that not one of the sites or tools identified that the Bank of India website was compromised and serving malware to all visitors. This isn't the first time that trust verification sites have had trouble identifying web content, with noted web application researcher RSnake recently taking umbrage at the classification that SiteAdvisor applies to his site."
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Shaolin Monks to sue over tale of defeat by ninja (www.cbc.ca) 1

Submitted by
Socguy
Socguy writes: "China's Shaolin Temple has demanded a public apology from an Internet user who claimed a Japanese ninja beat its kung fu-practising monks in a showdown, a lawyer said Friday.

An open letter from the temple posted on the Internet on Thursday denied the fight ever took place and called on the person who posted the claim under the name "Five minutes every day" to apologize to the temple's martial arts masters.

Monks from the temple, nestled in the Songshan Mountains of central China's Henan province, said they will consider legal action if he or she doesn't make a public apology.

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/Oddities/070831/K083106AU.htm l"
Education

Submission + - New theory on 5,000-year-old Iceman's death (www.ctv.ca)

Submitted by CmpEng
CmpEng writes: ROME, Italy — Researchers studying Iceman, the 5,000-year-old mummy found frozen in the Italian Alps, have come up with a new theory for how he died, saying he died from head trauma, not by bleeding to death from an arrow. Just two months ago, researchers in Switzerland published an article in the Journal of Archeological Science saying the mummy — also known as Oetzi — had died after the arrow tore a hole in an artery beneath his left collarbone, leading to massive loss of blood, shock and heart attack.
Software

Submission + - Assyrian, Babylonian, Sumerian Translator Created (marketwire.com)

Submitted by DrJackson
DrJackson writes: A new ancient languages online translator has been developed. It can translate Assyrian, Babylonian, Sumerian and the hieroglyphic script of Egyptian (1 of the 3 anyway). This is the website: virtualsecrets.com . This is the first time I ever saw a translator for cuneiform. Something like this would be great for translating interesting historical records like the Amarna Letters.
Privacy

Submission + - Florist sued for breaching customer's privacy (aol.com)

Submitted by soccer_Dude88888
soccer_Dude88888 writes: If you're going to cheat on your wife you have to be smarter than this, however, in this guy's case it may just pay off big.

http://news.aol.com/story/ar/_a/man-sues-florist-f or-revealing-affair/20070810160709990001

All the while 1-800-FLOWERS released a statement saying this:

"At 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, we take pride in creating relationships with our customers by recognizing and thanking them for their business.....We take all matters relating to our customers seriously; however, we are not responsible for an individual's personal conduct. Beyond this, it is the company's policy not to comment on pending litigation and legal matters."
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - ESA Altered Wikipedia Entries on Mod Chips (gamepolitics.com)

Submitted by sesshomaru
sesshomaru writes: Game Politics is reporting that the Entertainment Software Association has been editing Wikipedia entries on modchips and abandonware so that they will be more favorable to their point of view. In other words, they've edited them so that any discussion of legal or moral gray areas are removed and the Wikipedia entries say that these things are illegal, period. Here's a link to the Game Politics article:

ESA Altered Wikipedia Entries on Mod Chips, Abandonware

Links to the alterations made in the article can be found in the article, and thanks to Wikipedia Scanner for uncovering this scandal.
The Internet

Submission + - For Videotron, Unlimited Access now means 100Gb

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Canadian Internet access provider Videotron just sent a letter to all its "Extreme High Speed Unlimited Internet Access" customers announcing that, as of October the 1st, unlimited would mean 100Gb/month.

Over limit Gbs will cost 1.50$CA each.

The Videotron.ca Web site still advertizes the package as unlimited.
Security

Submission + - No RealID? You'll Need a Passport (cnn.com)

Submitted by mmurphy000
mmurphy000 writes: According to CNN:

Americans may need passports to board domestic flights or to picnic in a national park next year if they live in one of the states defying the federal Real ID Act.


Note that these are the same passports which are already shipping with RFID tags.

Slashdot Top Deals

HELP!!!! I'm being held prisoner in /usr/games/lib!

Close