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Music

EMI Says Online File Storage Is Illegal 405

WiglyWorm writes "MP3tunes CEO Michael Robertson sent out an email to all users of the online music backup and place-shifting service MP3tunes.com, asking them to help publicize EMI's ridiculous and ignorant lawsuit against the company. EMI believes that consumers aren't allowed to store their music files online, and that MP3tunes is violating copyright law by providing a backup service."
Idle

Boss Waterboards Employee in Team Building Exercise 13

As part of a team building exercise, Chad Hudgens agreed to be waterboarded. "He lay on his back with his head downhill, co-workers knelt on either side of him, pinning the young sales rep down while their supervisor poured water from a gallon jug over his nose and mouth." His boss told the employees present, "You saw how hard Chad fought for air right there. I want you to go back inside and fight that hard to make sales." Chad thought about it for a few days and is now suing. General counsel for the company, George Brunt says, "We're not the mean waterboarding company that people think we are. I don't know if this would even be an issue if it weren't for Guantanamo Bay." He added that the company has seen great success with other torture themed training such as "The Iron Boot of Productivity" and "Drawn and Quarterly Reports."
Portables

Walter Bender Resigns From OLPC 126

westlake writes "Walter Bender, the former executive director of MIT's Media Lab, and, in many ways, the tireless workhorse and public face of OLPC, has resigned from OLPC after being reorganized and sidetracked into insignificance. The rumor mill would have it that 'constructionism as children [learn] learning' is being replaced by a much less romantic view of the XO's place in the classroom and XO's tech in the marketplace."

Comment Re:The questions are interesting... (Score 5, Insightful) 543

I considered some of the answers insightful, for example: "We know money doesn't create loyalty--a sense of purpose does".

Yes, some answers lacked deep content in that they were the expected carefully worded answer. Unfortunately, these questions almost required such an answer. For example, "Why do we still confer most-favored nation trading status onto a Nation who is actively engaged in efforts to spy on and attack our government and corporate computer systems?" Although this is a very good question, General Lord seems like the wrong person to even attempt that question. The probable complaint is that the answers lacked detail. For example, from the same question "What, if anything, is being done against this type of cyber-terrorism against us and our allies?" The answer lacks detail, but it would be difficult to add detail to his answer without discussing a specific threat. I would have enjoyed that discussion, BTW, and use his answer as a start: "working to improve our ability to respond to cyber attacks, reduce the potential damage from such events, and to reduce our vulnerability to such attacks."

Thank you General Lord for your time!

Feed Amazon to Sell DRM-Free Music (wired.com)

Move over iTunes -- Amazon announces a music store selling DRM-free music from EMI, the first major label to embrace DRM-free music. Apple announced a similar deal, but Amazon will sell tracks in the popular MP3 format.


Software

Submission + - Ubuntu Media Center to use Elisa instead of MythTV

clevelandguru writes: Canonical is working on a Media Center Editon of Ubuntu. Recently, the Ubuntu Media Center Team made a decision to use Elisa instead of MythTV. Elisa is still in development and lacks lot of features that are in MythTV, but It has a very impressive user interface. Here are some screenshots of Elisa. Elisa uses GStreamer Multimedia Framework which is legally appealing compared to FFmpeg that MythTV uses.
It's funny.  Laugh.

Submission + - Judge in internet case: "What's a 'web site'?&

mcgrew writes: "A British judge in the trial of three men in a terrorism case where the internet was central to the case admitted he didn't know what a "web site" was. The Reuters article says that "Violent Islamist material posted on the Internet, including beheadings of Western hostages, is central to the case."

"The trouble is I don't understand the language. I don't really understand what a Web site is," the judge said.

From TFA: "Concluding Wednesday's session and looking ahead to testimony on Thursday by a computer expert, the judge told Ellison: 'Will you ask him to keep it simple, we've got to start from basics'.""

Feed Source code auditing keeps organizations on the right side of licensing (newsforge.com)

In 2000, when Theresa Friday, Ray Waldin, and Jeff Luszcz were working for dot-com startup Cacheon, they saw firsthand the power of open source software to impact a business model. In Cacheon's case, it looked like open source had dealt a death blow to the company, but it was really careless use of third-party code that was the source of the trouble, Friday says. The three colleagues were so impacted by what they had seen that they launched a new business designed to help other companies prevent implosion from software licensing issues.
Patents

Submission + - Torvalds Responds To Recent Linux Patent Claims.

Happy To Be Free writes: "Information Week response from Lead Kernel Developer Linus Torvalds on recent Microsoft allegations that Linux infringes on Microsoft patents. Torvalds states "It's certainly a lot more likely that Microsoft violates patents than Linux does. If the source code for Windows could be subjected to the same critical review that Linux has been, Microsoft would find itself in violation of patents held by other companies," he said. It is important to note that fundemental OS theory was done by IBM over fifty years ago, and that IBM probably owned thousands of really fundemental patents. So according to him, and many of us users, Microsoft should name the patents it claims have been violated so the claims can be tested in court or so open-source developers can rewrite code to avoid the violation all together. It is widely accepted that Microsoft would rather have Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt floating through the ether than name which patents, if any, are being infriged upon. In a parting shot Torvalds posed the question, "Don't you think that if Microsoft actually had some really foolproof patent, they'd just tell us and go, 'nyaah, nyaah, nyaah!'""
The Courts

Submission + - OIN Stands Ready to Sue Microsoft over Patent FUD

Litigious Bastards Redux writes: "OIN, a patent trust created by IBM, Novell and others to protect Linux, has just issued a press release saying that they stand ready to sue Microsoft to protect Linux. Although Microsoft has stirred up a lot of controversy about how Linux infringes upon their patents, they still haven't listed the actual patents they believe Linux has infringed upon. So far, analysts think that Microsoft fears the legal trouble the GPLv3 could cause for them, are only making noise so that they can make private deals with companies to slow Linux adoption, or that they are being pushed to litigate instead of competing or innovating because migrating to Vista is a pain in the ass and Office's lock-in is being broken by ODF. Only one thing is clear so far: actually litigating these patents would turn Microsoft into another SCO."
Microsoft

Submission + - Torvalds Responds To Microsoft Patent Claims

An anonymous reader writes: Linux Torvalds has a sharp retort to Microsoft executives' statements in a Fortune article that Linux violates 235 Microsoft patents. In an emailed response to InformationWeek's Charlie Babcock, Torvalds writes: "It's certainly a lot more likely that Microsoft violates patents than Linux does." He added: "Basic operating system theory was pretty much done by the end of the 1960s. IBM probably owned thousand of really 'fundamental' patents...The fundamental stuff was done about half a century ago and has long, long since lost any patent protection."
Republicans

Submission + - Jerry Falwell

zophyx writes: The Reverend Jerry Falwell died suddenly today.
The Rev. Jerry Falwell found unconscious in office at Liberty University
Falwell, 73, was rushed to a Lynchburg, Virginia, hospital
He is a nationally known voice for conservative Christian views

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