35225161
submission
aesoteric writes:
Tasmania's police force has taken the unusual step of asking the public to stop alerting it to every "abusive or harassing" comment posted to Facebook or other social media sites. The force said it was "increasingly receiving complaints" about material posted to the sites, but sought to clarify that "the use of technology to undertake some conduct does not in itself create an offence".
33678413
submission
schliz writes:
Internet users could contribute to an official blacklist of suspected terrorist content under a budding 'Clean IT' project, backed by the European Commission. Participating governments are putting together 13 proposals in a text that commits web hosts, search engines and ISPs to helping to weed out content that incites acts of terror.
33512601
submission
aesoteric writes:
Six weeks after Hollywood lost a landmark internet piracy case in Australia, it appears the film studios have gone cold on the idea of helping develop legal avenues to access copyrighted content as a way to combat piracy. Instead, they've produced research to show people will continue pirating even if there are legitimate content sources available. The results appear to support the studio's policy position that legislation is a preferable way of dealing with the issue.
33511449
submission
schliz writes:
Australian tech publication iTnews is defining ”patent trolls" as those who claim rights to an invention without commercializing it, and notes that government research organization CSIRO could come under that definition.
The CSIRO in April reached a $220 million settlement over three US telcos’ usage of WLAN that it invented in the early 1990s. Critics have argued that the CSIRO had failed to contribute to the world’s first wifi 802.11 standard, failed to commercialize the wifi chip through its spin-off, Radiata, and chose to wage its campaign in the Eastern District courts of Texas, a location favored by more notorious patent trolls.
33412307
submission
aesoteric writes:
Australia's top miners have opened a new front in their march to automation, flying unmanned aerial vehicles in increasing numbers at remote sites across the country. They've been used to inspect a fire-damaged oil rig, perform aerial photography and stockpile surveys. There is also a trend towards non US-built UAVs, due to the lag in receiving export approvals for the aircraft and spare parts.
33124243
submission
schliz writes:
The Australian software patent system could be used by open source developers to ensure their inventions remain available to the community, a conference organised by intellectual property authority IP Australia heard this week.
According to Australian inventor Ric Richardson, whose company came out on top of a multi-million dollar settlement with Microsoft in March, a world without software patents would be "open slather for anybody who can just go faster than the next person".
Software developer Ben Sturmfels, whose 2010 anti-software-patent petition won the support of open source community members such as Jonathan Oxer, Andrew Tridgell, and software freedom activist Richard Stallman, disagreed.
33005983
submission
aesoteric writes:
A New Zealand internet service provider has withdrawn a controversial, week-old service that allowed users to circumvent geographic restrictions on US and British video services like Hulu, Netflix and BBC's iPlayer. The company said it was taking more advice on the legality of the service, but earlier seemed sure of its legal position.
32999465
submission
aesoteric writes:
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has voiced a renewed desire to see the company open its architecture to the masses, allowing savvy users to expand and add to their products at will. However, Wozniak qualified his desire for a more open Apple by arguing that openness should not impinge on the quality of the products themselves. He also sees any change of heart on openness as a challenge when Apple continues to rake in huge cash with its current model.
32603487
submission
aesoteric writes:
The combustion of an Apple iPhone 4 after a regional flight in Australia was likely caused by a botched repair of the handset by an unauthorised repairer, according to air safety investigators in the US and Australia. A small metal screw had been misplaced in the battery bay of the handset. The screw punctured the battery casing and causing an internal short circuit, causing the iPhone to emit dense smoke.
32125423
submission
aesoteric writes:
A lot has been said about the three-year, multi-million dollar legal battle between Hollywood studios and Australian ISP iiNet that finally exhausted all legal options last week. The court's decision brings relief and clarity for the internet industry on issues of liability in the digital age. But the victory is tempered by the over-confidence the decision affords ISPs and by the scale of the film industry's legal losses. Buoyed by its clean sweep, iiNet has made no secret it would prefer to walk away from attempts to create an industry scheme to address internet piracy. The High Court suggests legislative reform is the answer, though the Government has shown little appetite for it. And in the meantime, the studios' have been dealt a death blow on the quality of infringement notices sent to ISPs — they have to be of an interlocutory evidentiary standard before they could even be considered actionable. The key takeout from five of Australia's top IP law experts? Something's gotta give.
29877301
submission
mask.of.sanity writes:
The National Security Agency has designed a super-secure Android phone from commercial parts, and released the blueprints to the public.
The doubly-encrypted phone, dubbed Fishbowl, was designed to be secure enough to handle top secret phone calls yet be as easy to use and cheap to build as commercial handsets.
One hundred US government staff are using the phones under a pilot which is part of a wider project to redesign communication platforms used in classified conversations.
29816219
submission
aesoteric writes:
Facebook has embarked on a nationwide test of a new disaster message board for users across Japan. The feature allows users to mark themselves as being "safe" in the event of a disaster. Doing so introduces a "safe" insignia next to their name on their profile. The Facebook announcement appeared to be geoblocked.
29649873
submission
aesoteric writes:
Boeing Defence has revealed it is bidding to regain an operations contract for the Joint U.S.-Australia satellite intelligence facility at Pine Gap near the centre of Australia, that it lost to rival Raytheon almost seven years ago. Boeing held the operations and maintenance contract at Pine Gap for 30 years until it lost the contract to Raytheon Australia in August 2005.
29242019
submission
aesoteric writes:
An Australian developer has estimated the commercial cost to build the forthcoming release of the Debian operating system, codenamed Wheezy, would be over $19 billion. The valuation is created using a tool called sloccount, which has previously been used to cost Fedora 9 and the Linux kernel.
