17609118
submission
superglaze writes:
A variety of web companies, along with the UK's ISP Association, have written an open letter to prime minister David Cameron, calling for an upcoming revision to English libel law to take the internet fully into account. In the UK, an offending printed article can lead to a defamation suit up to one year after its publication, but on the web every time the content is viewed it counts as a new publication. This means that years-old articles can spark libel lawsuits at any time. Quite fairly, the companies think this is ridiculous.
17432458
submission
superglaze writes:
Nokia smartphone chief Jo Harlow has revealed more about the Finnish giant's plans for Symbian, which it brought in-house on Monday. Harlow told ZDNet UK that Nokia had not yet decided on a definition for "open" that would suit the licensing for the open-source platform. She also promised to make the ageing platform "beautiful", and explained what she sees as the differences between Symbian and rivals such as Android and iOS.
9964076
submission
superglaze writes:
The European Commission is "not supporting and will not accept" any attempt to have Acta (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) force countries to disconnect people for downloading copyrighted material, a spokesman for the new EU trade commissioner has said.
All the signs are that the new commission, which took office earlier this month, intends to take a hardline stance against US proposals for a filesharing-related disconnection system. 'Three strikes' is allowed in EU countries, but not mandated by the European government itself, and it looks like the new administration wants to keep it that way. From trade commssion spokesman John Clancy, quoted in ZDNet UK's article:
"[Acta] has never been about pursuing infringements by an individual who has a couple of pirated songs on their music player. For several years, the debate has been about what is 'commercial scale' [piracy]. EU legislation has left it to each country to define what a commercial scale is and this flexibility should be kept in Acta."
9431812
submission
superglaze writes:
Nvidia has unveiled Optimus, its automated graphics-switching technology. They're being pretty bullish about adoption, claiming that more than 50 notebook models using the tech will be on sale by midsummer. Basically, the technology obviates the need for the user to manually switch between integrated and discrete graphics (the company says hardly anyone actually bothers doing this), so notebooks can stick to power-saving mode while not playing back high-def video or running games.
8845776
submission
superglaze writes:
The UK government has made the country's public data, such as statistics and traffic information, available for use in mash-ups. More than 2,500 datasets relating to public services are now open for use by developers and businesses. According to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who led the government-sponsored project: "Making public data available for reuse is about increasing accountability and transparency and letting people create new, innovative ways of using it... By releasing it, we can unlock new ideas for delivering public services, help communities and society work better, and let talented entrepreneurs and engineers create new businesses and services."
7399648
submission
superglaze writes:
A pub owner in the UK has been fined £8,000 because someone downloaded copyrighted content over their free Wi-Fi hotspot, according to a Wi-Fi firm chief quoted in ZDNet UK. The details of the case are still hazy because the quoted source is not yet ready to specify the pub in question, and because legal experts are of the opinion that he or she shouldn't have been held liable anyway. Still, the story provides something to worry about for any business running open Wi-Fi in the current, crackdown-happy copyright environment. As internet law professor Lilian Edwards warns in a follow-up story, such hotspot operators should "watch out for the pile of copyright infringement warnings" their way.
7240130
submission
superglaze writes:
UK mobile broadband providers currently have no way of telling which subscribers are file-sharing which copyrighted content, ZDNet UK reports. This represents something of a problem for new laws that have been proposed to crack down on unlawful filesharing. According to the article, databases could be built to make it possible to identify what specific users are downloading, but the industry is loath to fund this sort of project itself.
Also, as an analyst points out in the piece, prepay users are mostly anonymous in the UK, which creates a new challenge for the government's plans. And if that isn't enough, connection-sharing apps like JoikuBoost would make identification pretty much impossible anyway.
6989730
submission
superglaze writes:
The UK's national cyber-defence and cyber-attack organisation, the Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC), will go live in March, ZDNet UK reports.
According to a government spokesperson quoted in the article, CSOC is looking for people who "understand the 'teenage hacker mentality'" to staff the operation. From the article:
Staff will be recruited from contributing organisations, which include signal intelligence agency GCHQ, the Cabinet Office, UK intelligence agencies and law enforcement, said the spokesperson...
CSOC primarily will have a defensive role, but as a last resort could be used as a platform to launch a cyberattack.
6812030
submission
superglaze writes:
New York Attorney General Cuomo has launched his long-awaited lawsuit against Intel for engaging in anti-competitive, anti-AMD practices. Cuomo has charged that: "Intel has extracted exclusive agreements from large computer makers in which they agreed to use Intel's microprocessors in exchange for payments totaling billions of dollars. Intel also threatened to and did in fact punish computer makers that they perceived to be working too closely with Intel's competitors".
Dell, HP and IBM are named in the case, the details of which make for fascinating reading. After the European Union fined Intel a billion euros for much the same sort of activity earlier this year, we will have to see how much — if Intel loses — the chipmaker will get stung this time round.
