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Cloud

VMware, a Falling Giant? 417

New submitter Lashat writes "According to Ars Technica, 'A new survey seems to show that VMware's iron grip on the enterprise virtualization market is loosening, with 38 percent of businesses planning to switch vendors within the next year due to licensing models and the robustness of competing hypervisors.' What do IT-savvy Slashdotters have to say about moving away from one of the more stable and feature rich VM architectures available?"
The Courts

Apple Threatens Bistro Over "AppleADay" Name 301

itwbennett writes "In today's edition of David v. Goliath, Apple lawyers have sent cease and desist letters to a tiny health food restaurant in Luxembourg named AppleADay. For their part, the owners of AppleADay, with help from a lawerly friend, have promised that they would continue to sell only food, not computers. Of course, Apple knows as well as anyone that promises are made to be broken, having famously promised Apple Corps, the Beatles' production company, they would never get into the music business."
Music

Universal Uses DMCA To Get Bad Lip Reading Parody Taken Down 298

Joren writes "Bad Lip Reading is an independent producer known for anonymously parodying music and political videos by redubbing them with his humorous attempts at lip-reading, such as Everybody Poops (Black Eyed Peas) and Gang Fight (Rebecca Black). According to an interview in Rolling Stone, he creates entirely new music from scratch consisting of his bad lip readings, and then sets them to the original video, often altering the video for humorous effect and always posting a link to the original off which it is based. Although his efforts have won the respect of parody targets Michael Bublé and Michelle Bachman, not everyone has been pleased. Two days ago, Universal Music Group succeeded in getting his parody Dirty Spaceman taken down from YouTube, and despite BLR's efforts to appeal, in his words, 'UMG essentially said "We don't care if you think it's fair use, we want it down."' And YouTube killed it. So does this meet the definition of parody as a form of fair use? And if so, what recourse if any is available for artists who are caught in this situation?"

Comment Facebook is a wonderful tool if used properly (Score 1) 40

I do agree with you 100%, Facebook does make it easier to communicate with people over the internet. While the original poster did make some sense that it is best to meet others IRL sometimes it is impossible to meet all friends IRL. For example I have met a few good friends through facebook. One person I have met has been such a wonderful friend to me. She lives in Ilkeston, Derbyshire and we have chatted quite a bit over the past year about the FB games we play, our troubles, our interests, Doctor Who, forum based Role Playing, and many other things. In fact I feel I could trust her with my life even though we have never met face to face. I think it is because we both feel like we have known each other for years.

Back to the original point without Facebook I would not have met her, or my other online friends for that matter, at all. As far a privacy I don't see what the big deal as I don't place some of my deepest, darkest secrets on Facebook. People just need to be careful what the post online whether it is a social media site, or their personal websites.

Social Networks

Syrian Hackers Deface Anonymous' Social Network 80

CWmike writes "After the hacking gang Anonymous took credit for defacing Syria's Ministry of Defense website, a Syrian group retaliated on Monday by posting gruesome photos on Anonymous' embryonic social network. The defacement of AnonPlus — the site Anonymous set up last month when it was booted off Google+ — did not include the name of the group responsible. The University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, however, credited the AnonPlus defacement to the 'Syrian Electronic Army' in a message posted to Twitter. 'In response to your hacking to the website of the Syrian Ministry of Defence, the Syrian people have decided to purify the internet of [y]our pathetic website,' the defacement read."

Comment Re:Links (Score 1) 188

According to the fine article "Duke Nukem Forever Demo Released, Access To First Access Club Only" In other words everyone should be able to download it soon. Right now only those who are in the club can download it and AFAIK those who have reserved a copy will have access to the demo.

Comment Re:Nope (Score 1) 607

Ah, the "go slit your wrists" troll has returned. What's wrong? Too intellectually bankrupt to write anything that adds to the discussions or debates here on /., or are you just too bored? If it is the latter then go out and get a life. If it is the former then grow up, further your education, then get a life. Simple as that.

Comment Re:Nope (Score 1) 607

I agree with you it shouldn't be there. Correct me if I am wrong on this point but TiVo was most likely forced to use DRM in their files in order to use allow the legal use of cable cards in their DVR. Fortunately not many channels are flagged for copy prevention. As far as the ease of copying TiVo desktop and Desktop Plus allows someone to download from the TiVo unit and then convert it to video that is playable on an iPod, iPhone, several blackberry devices, Palm Pre, Zune, PSP, and several other devices. As far as burning them onto a video DVD or Blu-Ray it does take a few additional steps. Start off with either TiVo desktop, TiVo PLaylist, Galleon, or any web browser to download the video or videos, using either Tivo Decode or Directshow Dump to remove the wrapper, then use any DVD/Blu Ray authoring software out there as long as it supports MPEG2.

While it is rather easy not everyone would be able to perform such acts. Then again, those who have little or no technical skill probably were not able to set the clock on a VCR, or copy a simple file on a computer. No matter how easy you make something there is always going to be quite a few people who will not simply get it.

Comment Re:Nope (Score 1) 607

IMO the reason SyFy has wrestling is simple, they are transforming into another "Men's" channel much like TNN did as they transformed from The Nashville Network to The National Network and finally to Spike TV/spike.

At least SyFi isn't as bad as Spike. When spike had Star Trek Voyager they butchered the start time like many of their other shows. More times than not it started late, sometimes up to 25 minutes late which would prevent any DVR from recording the entire show.

As far as DRMs I can download the shows rather easily from my TiVo and remove the DRM to burn to either DVD or Blu-Ray. I have even converted the files rather easily for use on my iPod classic.

Piracy

CNET Sued Over LimeWire Client Downloads 206

suraj.sun writes with this quote from Ars Technica: "Alki David, the wealthy film producer and entrepreneur behind sites like FilmOn, has sued CNET and its owner, CBS, for providing hundreds of millions of downloads of LimeWire P2P software over the last decade. He argues that CNET had 'direct participation in massive copyright infringement on peer-to-peer systems, such as LimeWire, that are used to copy and distribute songs, films and other artistic works,' and that CNET's Download.com was the 'main distributor' of the software. P2P software isn't illegal, though companies that use it to induce or encourage copyright infringement can be held liable. The principle, most famously articulated by the US Supreme Court in the Grokster shutdown, was extended to LimeWire last year when a federal judge shut down most of the company's activity."
Government

'Motherlode' of Data Seized At Bin Laden Compound 718

itwbennett writes "The raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan Sunday also turned up an 'intelligence harvest' of computer-based data that was described by an anonymous government source as 'the motherlode of intelligence.' The data is being sifted through at a secret site in Afghanistan. An unnamed official was quoted by Politico as saying: 'Hundreds of people are going through it now. It's going to be great even if only 10 percent of it is actionable. They cleaned it out. Can you imagine what's on Osama bin Laden's hard drive?'"

Comment Re:Microsoft's use of patents against free softwar (Score 1) 7

Once again twitter you have no idea what you are talking about. First of all my name actually is John, not Joe. I live in Richmond Indiana and that can be verified at http://www.johnbwilcox.net./ Also at pal-item.com as the same user name. I have nothing to hide unlike you. I get absolutely no money from Microsoft. But since you are making the claim that I am this "Joe Wilcox" why not put the money where your mouth is and prove it?

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