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Censorship

WikiLeaks Under Denial of Service Attack 870

wiredmikey writes "WikiLeaks has reported that its Web site is currently under a mass distributed denial of service attack. The attack comes around the time of an expected release of classified State Department documents, which the Obama administration says will put 'countless' lives at risk, threaten global counterterrorism operations and jeopardize US relations with its allies."
The Courts

USCG Sues Copyright Defense Lawyer 360

ESRB writes "The US Copyright Group has sued Graham Syfert, an attorney who created a packet of self-representation paperwork for individuals sued for P2P sharing of certain movies and moved to have sanctions placed against the defense attorney. Syfert sells these packets for $20, and the USCG claims the 19 individuals who have used it have cost them over $5000."
Java

Oracle To Monetize Java VM 641

jtotheh writes "According to the Register, Oracle is going to make two tiers of Java Virtual Machine — a free one and a premium paid one. 'Adam Messinger, Oracle vice president of development, told QCon that Oracle plans to offer a "premium" edition of the JDK in addition to the open-source JDK. Both, it seems, will be based on a converged JRockit VM and the Hotspot JVM from Sun Microsystems. The converged JVM will be released under the OpenJDK project. ... Messinger didn't explain how the premium JVM would differ [from] the free version, but the premium edition will likely see performance tuning and tie-ins to Oracle's middleware.'"
NASA

Dying Man Shares Unseen Challenger Video 266

longacre writes "An amateur video of the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger explosion has been made public for the first time. The Florida man who filmed it from his front yard on his new Betamax camcorder turned the tape over to an educational organization a week before he died this past December. The Space Exploration Archive has since published the video into the public domain in time for the 24th anniversary of the catastrophe. Despite being shot from about 70 miles from Cape Canaveral, the shuttle and the explosion can be seen quite clearly. It is unclear why he never shared the footage with NASA or the media. NASA officials say they were not aware of the video, but are interested in examining it now that it has been made available."
Science

The End Of Gravity As a Fundamental Force 650

An anonymous reader writes "At a symposium at the Dutch Spinoza-instituut on 8 December, 2009, string theorist Erik Verlinde introduced a theory that derives Newton's classical mechanics. In his theory, gravity exists because of a difference in concentration of information in the empty space between two masses and its surroundings. He does not consider gravity as fundamental, but as an emergent phenomenon that arises from a deeper microscopic reality. A relativistic extension of his argument leads directly to Einstein's equations." Here are two blog entries discussing Verlinde's proposal in somewhat more accessible terms.
Update: 01/12 04:48 GMT by KD : Dr. Verlinde has put up a blog post explaining in simpler terms the logic of the gravity from entropy paper. He introduces it with: "Because the logic of the paper is being misrepresented in some reports, I add here some clarifications."

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