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Piracy

The Pirate Bay Sinks And Swims 347

Posted by CmdrTaco from the whac-a-mole dept.
mikael_j writes "This morning the German ISP that had been hosting The Pirate Bay's website and search engine shut the site down. A few hours later the website was back up, this time with hosting provided by the Swedish Pirate Party, which issued a press release (in Swedish) explaining why they have chosen to host The Pirate Bay."
Education

Texas Schools Board Rewriting US History 1238

Posted by kdawson from the nation-chosen-by-god dept.
suraj.sun picked up a Guardian (UK) piece on the Texas school board and their quest to remake US education in a pro-American, Christian, free enterprise mode. We've been keeping an eye on this story for some time, as it will have an impact far beyond Texas. From the Guardian: "The board is to vote on a sweeping purge of alleged liberal bias in Texas school textbooks in favor of what Dunbar says really matters: a belief in America as a nation chosen by God as a beacon to the world, and free enterprise as the cornerstone of liberty and democracy. ... Those corrections have prompted a blizzard of accusations of rewriting history and indoctrinating children by promoting right-wing views on religion, economics, and guns while diminishing the science of evolution, the civil rights movement, and the horrors of slavery. ... Several changes include sidelining Thomas Jefferson, who favored separation of church and state, while introducing a new focus on the 'significant contributions' of pro-slavery Confederate leaders during the Civil War. ... Study of Sir Isaac Newton is dropped in favor of examining scientific advances through military technology."
Music

Bach Launches Updated MP3 Format 279

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the more-than-just-hinderance-a-novel-idea dept.
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that Bach Technology has rolled out an updated MP3 file format in a bid to combat music piracy. Dubbed "MusicDNA," the new format offers embedded "updatable premium content" like lyrics, videos, news updates, and album artwork. "Using the new technology, music labels and bands will be able to send updates to the music files – with tour dates, interviews or updates to social networking pages – while illegally-downloaded files remain static. ... No major labels have signed up to use MusicDNA so far, but British record company Beggars Group and US label Tommy Boy are both on board. However, the files are likely to be more expensive than MP3 files – according to the BBC – and will have to compete with Apple's iTunes LP, which already provides additional content such as bonus tracks, lyrics and video interviews."
Hardware

Submission + - Dual Screen Laptops (gizmag.com)

Submitted by smitty777
smitty777 writes: Judging by the recent Slashdot poll , many of you out there will be as excited as I am by Kohhinsha's new dual screen laptop. The screens can be rotated 180 degrees for viewing and fold for transport. The image gallery shows the device in a single display mode, so I'm assuming this is configurable on the fly. The site also claims the laptop is only .75 inches thick when folded.

Submission + - UNIX turns 40

Submitted by IndioMan
IndioMan writes: The systems world will shortly be celebrating a major anniversary milestone. UNIX is turning 40 years old! Most of us know the story of how UNIX was born, but what about why? Was it born strictly because its founders wanted to play a computer game on a different platform? And why does UNIX continue to thrive 15 years after an (in)famous Byte Magazine article that asked: Is UNIX dead?

Submission + - NASA Nebula: Cloud Computing in a Container (datacenterknowledge.com)

Submitted by 1sockchuck
1sockchuck writes: NASA has built its Nebula cloud computing platform inside a data center container so it can add capacity quickly, bringing extra containers online in 120 days. Nebula will provide on-demand compute power for NASA researchers managing large data sets and image repositories. "Nebula has been designed to automatically increase the computing power and storage available to science- and data-oriented web applications as demand rises" explains NASA's Chris Kemp. NASA has created the project using open source components and will release Nebula back to the open source community. "Hopefully we can provide a good example of a successful large-scale open source project in the government and pave the way for similar projects in other agencies," the Nebula team writes on its blog.
Science

Submission + - LHC knocked out by ANOTHER power failure 1

Submitted by known_ID
known_ID writes: The Large Hadron Collider — most puissant particle-punisher ever assembled by the human race — has suffered another major power failure, knocking not only the atomsmasher itself but even its associated websites offline.

Submission + - Working Totally In The Cloud As a Web Developer

Submitted by tedcarew
tedcarew writes: Lately, with or without realizing, everything is moving to the cloud so fast. I no longer use MS office software or have a 2nd harddrive to backup my data. They are all in the cloud.

After reading an inspiring article: "100% Web-Based Working For Web Designers", realized that it is already so possible to work in the cloud without the need of any software but only an internet connection.

There is an alternative for every desktop application in the web: file management, image editing, storage, etc. Working in the cloud does not only mean portability but also a huge decrease in the licensing costs of softwares used, no need to purchasing stronger computers every year and so. What do you think, is it worth and possible?
Politics

Submission + - Scientists step down after CRU Hack fallout (wsj.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In the wake of the recent release of thousands of private files and emails after a server of the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia was hacked, Prof. Phil Jones is stepping down as head of the CRU. Prof. Michael Mann, another prominent climate scientist is also under inquiry by Penn State University.

Submission + - LCD Motion Blur: Fact and Fiction (extremetech.com)

Submitted by WesternActor
WesternActor writes: ExtremeTech has a story written by Raymond Soneira, the president of DisplayMate that addresses whether motion blur is still the problem with HDTVs it's always considered. He set up an elaborate test over several months to measure motion blur, and goes into a lot of detail about the process and his findings, some of which run counter to a lot of what you hear about HDTVs. It's very interesting to read about how this one-time problem has been distorted by both time and the manufacturers themselves who are trying to "market" around the "problem," and only end up making things more confusing for everyone.
Microsoft

Submission + - Seattle CTO and OpenSource... NOT (wordpress.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This post by the CTO of the City of Seattle is vehemently pro Microsoft. What is amazing is just how much so. Consider the opening rationale: "Microsoft provides 40,000 jobs in my area" and then another gem: "But I’m somewhat baffled that any CIO of a large government would seriously consider using open source software for our mission critical systems and services. This seems a little bit like using cell phones to dispatch police officers and firefighters or outsourcing your help desk to India. It will save money in the short term and work pretty well “most” of the time "

Submission + - Murdoch vs Google (enta.net)

Submitted by chrisrhill
chrisrhill writes: Head of Marketing at UK based wholesale Internet Service Provider Entanet International Ltd gives the Rupert Murdock vs Google/the web saga a critical look from the perspective of an ISP.

Submission + - So where are my technology e-books? 1

Submitted by darkeye
darkeye writes: With e-ink and e-books coming of age, it would be kind of obvious, that the first adopters of this technology would be tech enthusiasts themselves — who, for the most part, will be reading thick technology books, and also using them as reference. Anyone who has tried to travel with his tech books knows the weight of dead trees in their backpack, and would appreciate all that info in a single e-book, to be read on an e-book reader or on a laptop.

But — where are these e-books? Why is the paper edition still the default? Looking at major online book stores, either you're being forced into proprietary hardware & software like the Amazon Kindle http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Wireless-Reading-Display-Generation/dp/B0015T963C/ref=amb_link_86172951_2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=1PQRCJAZ1HS0S6YHSB0G&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=502000191&pf_rd_i=507846 , or you're not offered an e-book at all (Barns & Nobles, http://search.barnesandnoble.com/ , despite having their own e-book reader, the Nook, http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/ ), or you're stuck with viewing online and downloading a limited number of inconvenient watermarked chapters for a subscription fee (Safari online, http://www.safaribooksonline.com/ ). Publishers direct online stores usually don't offer e-books at all. It's only InformIT (http://www.informit.com/) that offers you e-books, at about a 20% discount when compared to the paper version.

So where are the e-books? When is it, that the default is going to be the environmentally friendly and convenient way of sharing written information? When are the reduced costs of this form of dissemination shared with the readers themselves?
Microsoft

Submission + - Black Screen of Death not Microsoft's fault (pcpro.co.uk) 4

Submitted by Barence
Barence writes: Microsoft says reports of 'Black Screen of Death' errors aren't caused by Windows Updates, as claimed by a British security firm. The software giant claims November's Windows Updates didn't alter registry keys in the way described by Prevx, which said that the Microsoft Patches caused PCs to boot with just a black screen and a Windows Explorer window. Microsoft is now blaming the problem on malware. Prevx has issued a grovelling apology on its own blog.

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