link5280 - Slashdot User

Comment Re:7lbs? (Score 1) 249

by link5280 on Sunday January 11, 2009 @11:17PM (#26412855) Attached to: The Scope of US E-Waste

Its illegal for the U.S. to export these items too. So its not just Chinese law being violated here U.S. law is as well. Sending your electronics to get "e-cycled" at a verified/certified company is no solution either. Many have been busted for exporting toxic electronics. Its all about making money...

Milky Way Heavier Than Thought, and Spinning Faster 285

Posted by kdawson on Monday January 05, 2009 @10:50PM from the bulking-up dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Milky Way is spinning much faster and has 50 per cent more mass than previously believed. This means the Milky Way is equivalent in size to our neighbor Andromeda — instead of being the little sister in the local galaxy group, as had been believed. One implication of this new finding is that we may collide with Andromeda sooner than we had thought, in 2 or 3 billion years instead of 5."

Tooth Regeneration Coming Soon 289

Posted by kdawson on Monday January 05, 2009 @09:12PM from the no-fairy-tale dept.

Ponca City, We love you writes "For thousands of years, losing teeth has been a routine part of human aging. Now the Washington Post reports that researchers are close to growing important parts of teeth from stem cells, including creating a living root from scratch, perhaps within one year. According to Pamela Robey of the NIH. 'Dentists say, "Give me a root and I can put a crown on it."' In a few years dentists will treat periodontal disease with regeneration by using stem cells to create hard and soft tissue; they will take out a tooth that is about to fall, and reconnect it firmly to the regenerated tissue. Although nobody is predicting when it will be possible to grow teeth on demand, in adults, to replace missing ones, a common guess is five to ten years. Baby and wisdom teeth are sources of stem cells that could be 'banked' for future health needs, says Robey. 'When you think about it, the teeth children put under their pillows may end up being worth much more than the tooth fairy's going rate. Plus, if you still have your wisdom teeth, it's nice to know you're walking around with your own source of stem cells.'"

Amazon S3 Adds Option To Make Data Accessors Pay 80

Posted by kdawson on Monday January 05, 2009 @08:17PM from the by-the-byte dept.

CWmike writes "Amazon.com has rolled out a new option for its Simple Storage Service (S3) that lets data owners shift the cost of accessing their information to users. Until now, individuals or businesses with information stored on S3 had to pay data-transfer costs to Amazon when others made use of the information. Amazon said the new Requester Pays option relieves data providers of that burden, leaving them to pay only the basic storage fees for the cloud computing service. The bigger question with the cloud is, who really pays? Mark Everett Hall argues that IT workers do."

Comment Re:Micro$oft lie? (Score 1) 311

by link5280 on Thursday January 01, 2009 @03:17PM (#26292319) Attached to: Microsoft Uses WGA To Obtain Record Jail Sentences

Nothing in the article suggests information collected from WGA was used in this case or that it passed on personal data either. MS has visibility when pirated/counterfeit versions of their products attempt to certify as Genuine. WGA only prevents an illegal copy from receiving updates. Headline is very misleading!

Comment Re:How Long? (Score 1) 362

by link5280 on Thursday June 05, 2008 @01:34PM (#23670785) Attached to: Happy Birthday! X86 Turns 30 Years Old

A compiler could do the same thing as the CPU, convert x86 instructions to the native CPU microcode. However, you would lose backwards compatibility. Microcode is architecture dependent, so a higher level instruction set (i.e. x86) provides a level of abstraction for programmers and compilers. So itâ(TM)s actually a good thing.

Lawmakers Debate Patent Immunity For Banks 382

Posted by kdawson on Monday February 18, 2008 @08:17PM from the campaign-contributions-are-merely-a-coincidence dept.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Now that a small Texas company has a patent on scanning and archiving checks — something every bank does — that has survived a USPTO challenge, lawmakers feel they have to do something about it. Rather than reform patent law, they seem to think it wiser to protect the banks from having to pay billions in royalties by using eminent domain to buy the patent for an estimated $1 billion in taxpayer money, immunizing the banks. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)."

The Doctor Will See Your Credit Score Now 464

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Saturday January 19, 2008 @01:30AM from the what's-up-doc dept.

mytrip writes to mention that the same people who invented credit scores are working to create a similar system for hospitals and other health care providers. "The project, dubbed "MedFICO" in some early press reports, will aid hospitals in assessing a patient's ability to pay their medical bills. But privacy advocates are worried that the notorious errors that have caused frequent criticism of the credit system will also cause trouble with any attempt to create a health-related risk score. They also fear that a low score might impact the quality of the health care that patients receive."

Surveillance Rights for the Public? 273

Posted by Zonk on Thursday January 03, 2008 @07:24PM from the why-can't-we-big-brother-them-back dept.

Ian Lamont writes "Mike Elgan has an interesting take on surveillance technology, and how audio and video recordings should be used in private and public life. He cites the case of a New York City Police Detective who was secretly taped by a suspect during an interrogation that the detective initially denied took place during the suspect's murder trial, as well as a case involving two parents in Wisconsin who slipped a voice-activated recorder in their son's backpack after suspecting he was being abused by his bus driver. In the first case, even though the detective was later charged with 12 counts of perjury, Elgan notes that the police interrogation probably would not have taken place had the suspect announced to the detective that he was recording the session. In the second case, the tape was initially ruled inadmissible in court because Wisconsin state law prohibits the use of 'intercepted conversations' (it was later allowed as evidence). Elgan argues that there should be no questions about members of the public being allowed to record such interactions."

Submission + - Interesting and provocative take on surveillance

Submitted by

Loudog

on Thursday January 03, 2008 @06:32PM

Loudog writes: "Who watches the watchers? We do. Maybe having a personal surveillance system is a good idea: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9055126&pageNumber=1"

Antitrust Suit Filed To Halt Apple 'Music Monopoly' 510

Posted by Zonk on Thursday January 03, 2008 @06:03PM from the a-bit-too-popular dept.

Dotnaught writes with word of an anti-trust lawsuit filed against Apple late last month. Information Week has the story, a suit charging the company with maintaining an illegal monopoly on the digital music market. "The complaint goes beyond software licensing politics and charges Apple with deliberately designing its iPod hardware to be incompatible with WMA. One of the third-party components in iPods, the Portal Player System-On-A-Chip, supports WMA, according to the complaint. 'Apple, however, deliberately designed the iPod's software so that it would only play a single protected digital format, Apple's FairPlay-modified AAC format,' the complaint states. 'Deliberately disabling a desirable feature of a computer product is known as crippling a product, and software that does this is known as crippleware.'"

Submission + - Recut, Reframe, Recycle - Fair Use Online (centerforsocialmedia.org)

Submitted by

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property

on Thursday January 03, 2008 @03:48PM

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes: "If one listens to content distributors, any use of copyrighted material that doesn't bring in significant quarterly revenue is "piracy" and some have gone so far as to say that websites or games that allow user-submitted content are infringement engines. However, the Center for Social Media disagrees. In their study, "Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video," they found that most of the videos studied qualified for fair use protections under US law. Unfortunately, copyright filters aren't able to understand things like satire, parody, commentary, illustrations, or collages."

Submission + - Dvorak gets it...

Submitted by kristjansson on Thursday January 03, 2008 @08:54AM

kristjansson writes: Dvorak rants about the latest bits of outrage from the RIAA and the trend towards making any sort of copying illegal.

Submission + - AXIOM of Finance, Ethics is Valued Currency

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Wednesday January 02, 2008 @02:01PM

Anonymous Coward writes: "Goolge has proven beyond a reasonable doubt, to lack all ethics in resolution of Infringment and Fraud December 31, 2007 Dear European Union, Petition # [redacted]: Thanking the European Union for acknowledging the receipt of the Petition regarding Google, Inc / You Tube and the importance of Online Privacy and the many relationships to Piracy and Crime. We rest confidently in the operation of the EU to benefit its People. It is with the personal regret of my entire family that the United States Justice Department did not act sooner to protect my family and the rights of my family. Instances of this administrations preference to defer, disrespect and delay the rights of individuals are plentiful. We rest our faith wholly in the European Union's ability to examine the Google/Double Click merger under the cloud of these events and fully consider that Google, Inc. has in no way made any restitution or shown any will to correct itself in a manner that would show diligence in protecting the rights of all other EU Citizens. * Until Privacy Error Correction we implore no use of Google * * Google's disrespect of Our Privacy is endemic in a larger international problem. * The most earnest hope of the Linden/Harris family is that others in the European Union not be further exposed to Google's disrespectful nature to Individual Privacy and Property Rights. Now in US Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, directly related to Google, Inc.'s actions regarding Our EU Privacy Rights. My family has been severely and tortuously damaged by the reckless misconduct of this lawless US Corporation — Google, Inc. Our futures and that of our 4 year old daughter have been intentionally imperiled. We seek that Google, Inc. do no further damage to our fellow EU Citizens. We have bravely stood-up to this Tyranny for all Europeans, at great personal cost, Weakened by this injustice, we ask the same of you now. Sincerely, Gurfrip Says:>_ * Working Together we can Advance * James Reginald Harris, Jr., INVENTOR gurfrip.com/utube — 'You Be the Star'"

Submission + - Lessig Corrects ASCAP on Creative Commons (lessig.org)

Submitted by

sphere

on Wednesday January 02, 2008 @11:15AM

sphere writes: "Lawrence Lessig, the chair of the Creative Commons project, has taken on an ASCAP paper that advises musicians not to use Creative Commons for legal and financial reasons."

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