Submission + - Google's about-face; now it says China blocked...
Giosuele writes: BY Sharon Gaudin — The Chinese government apparently slowed access to Google Web sites earlier this week, as the search giant last night backed off earlier statements that access to the site was blocked by changes Google made to the engine's search parameters.
Submission + - NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 400 Cards Finally Out (softpedia.com)
Giosuele writes: By Sebastian Pop — After months and months of delays and secrecy, NVIDIA's highly anticipated GeForce GTX 470 and GTX 480 graphics adapters have finally seen the light of day, with the Santa Clara-based GPU maker having made the formal announcement at PAX 2010. They are made on the 40nm GF100 graphics processing unit, designed on the Fermi architecture, and, according to NVIDIA, are the most powerful single-GPU cards in existence. (more)
Submission + - Facebook’s Plan To Automatically Share Your (techcrunch.com)
Giosuele writes: By Jason Kincaid — In anticipation of a slew of new features that will be launching at f8, today Facebook announced that it was once again making changes to its privacy policy. One of the biggest changes that Facebook is making involves applications and third-party websites. We’ve been hearing whispers from multiple sources about these changes, and the announcement all but confirms what Facebook is planning to do. In short, it sounds like Facebook is going to be automatically opting users into a reduced form of Facebook Connect on certain third party sites — a bold change that may well unnerve users, at least at first.
Submission + - Health Care Bill Insurance Cost (tikithepanda.com)
Insurance Quotes writes: Did you think the health insurance situation was going to get better? Hopefully it does, but it doesn't look that way for many middle-class working americans. AT&T and many others are taking hundreds of millions or more in one-time charges. How does this make you feel? Do you believe it's better or worse for all?
You can read more about my opinion at http://www.tikithepanda.com/Blog/68/insurance/health-care-insurance-bill-cost
You can read more about my opinion at http://www.tikithepanda.com/Blog/68/insurance/health-care-insurance-bill-cost
Submission + - PR, politics, money: why Google left China (pcpro.co.uk)
Barence writes: Google has claimed the moral high ground since leaving China at the beginning of the week, even launching a scathing attack on Microsoft for not following suit. PC Pro's Stuart Turton wonders if free speech and human rights really were the driving forces behind Google's exit. He says there are three unanswered questions over Google's decision: if the roles had been reversed would Google have followed Microsoft out of China? Secondly, if Google hadn’t spotted the hack on its network, how many more years would it have continued to operate its censored search business? And finally, by leaving its R&D and sales teams in place, and continuing to launch new products in China – including Android and Chrome OS – is Google not continuing to “enable tyranny”?
Submission + - Israel's Supreme Court: Yes for Internet Anonymity (2jk.org)
jonklinger writes: The Israeli Supreme Court ruled this week that there is no civil procedure to reveal the identity of users behind an IP address, and that until such procedure shall be legislated, all internet postings, even torturous, may remain anonymous. The 69-page decision acknowledges the right for privacy and makes internet anonymity, de-facto, a constitutional right in Israel. Justice Rivlin noted that revealing a person behind an IP address is "an attempt to harness, prior to a legal proceeding, the justice system and a third party in order to conduct an inquiry which will lead to the revealing of a person committing a tort so that a civil suit could be filed against him".
Submission + - NVIDIA Drops Support For Its Open-Source Driver (phoronix.com) 2
An anonymous reader writes: While NVIDIA is not open-source friendly contrary to public outcries over the years, they have traditionally supported the xf86-video-nv driver to provide basic mode setting support and other basic functionality. However, with the "Fermi" and future products, even that open-source support will cease to exist. NVIDIA has announced they are dropping this open-source support for future GPUs and really ending it altogether. NVIDIA's recommendation is to just use the generic X.Org VESA driver to navigate their way to NVIDIA.com so that they can install the proprietary driver. Fortunately there is the Nouveau project that provides a 2D and 3D video driver for NVIDIA's hardware, but NVIDIA fails to acknowledge it nor support their efforts in any form.
Bookmark Cosmic Acceleration Confirmed (softpedia.com)
Submission + - Leonardo da Vinci to become Hollywood hero in new (telegraph.co.uk)
Giosuele writes: He was an artist, inventor, scientist and visionary. Five hundred years after his death, Leonardo da Vinci can add another string to his bow: Hollywood action hero.
