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Piracy

Swiss Gov't: Downloading Movies and Music Will Stay Legal 463

Posted by timothy from the wish-that-sanity-was-contagious dept.
wasimkadak writes "One in three people in Switzerland download unauthorized music, movies and games from the Internet, and — since last year — the government has been wondering what to do about it. This week their response was published, and it was crystal clear. Not only will downloading for personal use stay completely legal, but the copyright holders won't suffer because of it, since people eventually spend the money saved on entertainment products."
The Internet

Italian Court Rules Web Editors Not Responsible For Comments 72

Posted by samzenpus from the not-my-responsibility dept.
itwbennett writes "Internet freedom got a boost Wednesday when Italy's highest court ruled that the editors of online publications can't be held legally responsible for defamatory comments posted by their readers. The judges said online publications could not be treated in the same way as traditional print media and could not be expected to exercise preventative editorial control over readers' comments."
Media

Creating a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Bootable Flash Drive 206

Posted by timothy from the no-you-probably-can't-put-it-on-your-netbook dept.
WankerWeasel writes "With the release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion this month, Apple will no longer offer a bootable installer DVD and is making 10.7 Lion available only through the App Store. This guide provides quick instructions on how to use the OS X 10.7 Lion installer to create a bootable flash drive (instructions for making a bootable DVD are also included on the blog)."
Graphics

Upscaling Retro 8-Bit Pixel Art To Vector Graphics 325

Posted by timothy from the awesomeness-defined dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Two researchers — Johannes Kopf from Microsoft, and Dani Lischinski from The Hebrew University — have successfully created an algorithm that depixelizes and upscales low-resolution 8-bit 'pixel art' into lush vector graphics. The algorithm identifies pixel-level details (original paper — PDF) to accurately shade the new image — but more importantly, the algorithm can create smooth, curved contour lines from only-connected-on-the-diagonal single pixels. At long last, we might be able to play Super Mario Bros. on a big screen without stretching our beloved plumber's pixels to breaking point. You really must look at the sample images." Scroll down in the paper to see how their technique stacks up against some others, including Adobe's Live Trace.
NASA

Submission + - Monday marks final launch of NASA's Endeavor

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The final launch of the space shuttle Endeavor has settled to take place next Monday after engineers battled to resolve an electrical problem that plagued the original launch dates. The last launch of the space shuttle Endeavour, originally scheduled for April 29, is being pushed back for the 2nd time to May 16, official said today.
Network

Submission + - A neural network afflicted by schizophrenia (wordpress.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: By making it forget less quickly a neural network is afflicted with schizophrenic symptoms supporting the hyperlearning hypothesis. Can information overflow in our modern society cause schizophrenia?
KDE

Submission + - SimplyMEPIS 11.0 Released, Looks Good (ostatic.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: SimplyMEPIS 11.0 ships with KDE 4.5.3, Linux 2.6.36-1, X.Org X Server 1.7.7, GCC 4.4.5. Firefox 4.0.1, LibreOffice 3.3.2, GIMP 2.6.10, Frozen Bubble 2.2.0, and VLC 1.1.3 are some of the applications included. It also comes with utilities such as luckybackup and Sweeper. And in Susan Linton's test drive it runs real smooth.
Hardware Hacking

A $25 PC On a USB Stick 352

Posted by Soulskill from the when-did-the-future-get-here dept.
KPexEA writes with this excerpt from geek.com: "[Game developer David] Braben has developed a tiny USB stick PC that has an HDMI port on one end and a USB port on the other. You plug it into an HDMI socket and then connect a keyboard via the USB port, giving you a fully functioning machine running a version of Linux. The cost? $25. The hardware being offered is no slouch either. It uses a 700MHz ARM11 processor coupled with 128MB of RAM and runs OpenGL ES 2.0, allowing for decent graphics performance with 1080p output confirmed. ... We can expect it to run a range of Linux distributions, but it looks like Ubuntu may be the distro it ships with. That means it will handle web browsing, run office applications, and give the user a fully functional computer to play with as soon as it's plugged in. All that and it can be carried in your pocket or on a key chain."
Security

Submission + - LastPass Reports Possible Hacking, Leaked Data (thenextweb.com)

Submitted by Chaonici
Chaonici writes: LastPass, a popular online password management application, has reported on its blog that a possible external attack may have compromised certain user information. While there is no solid evidence that an attack took place, LastPass is assuming the worst, namely that the server salt and users' email addresses and salted password hashes were leaked. All LastPass users will have to change their master passwords (although users with strong passwords are less vulnerable to brute-force attacks), as well as authenticate themselves either through email or by logging in from a previously used IP address block. The company is also taking the opportunity to improve the encryption for their servers in response to the potential intrusion.
Google

Submission + - Google destroys Australian Street View Wi-Fi data (delimiter.com.au)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Remember when Google accidentally collected all that Wi-Fi payload data from people's household networks all around the world when its Street View cars were driving around taking photographs? Well, the company today took one step forward to rectifying the public relations nightmare created by the situation, confirming it had securely deleted all of the Wi-Fi data collected in Australia, and ensuring that its Street View cars no longer examine Wi-Fi networks. The question still remains, however, whether those with unsecure Wi-Fi networks should have simply secured them in the first place.

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