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Education

Old Software or Open Source? 454

Posted by CmdrTaco from the just-give-'em-all-slide-rules dept.
Pakled writes "I teach a high school multimedia course. We were scheduled to get new software this year but due to several pointy haired bosses, no software was ordered. The software I have to teach is Flash 5, Dreamweaver 2000, Photoshop 7 and (god help me) Movie Maker. The question is: is it better to teach old commercial software or their open source counterparts (Komposer, Gimp, etc.)? Is the steep learning curve and slightly less uniform design worth a little student frustration to teach them software written in the past 5 years?"
Music

UK Copyright Extension in Exchange for Censorship? 238

Posted by Zonk from the tit-for-reactionary-tat dept.
Awel writes "The UK opposition leader, David Cameron, says in a speech to the British Phonographic Industry that his party would work to extend the copyright term to 70 years and crack down on piracy. But in return, labels would have to agree to bear more 'social responsibility', which appears to translate into avoiding lyrics that glorify 'an anti-learning culture, truancy, knifes, violence, guns, misogyny'. He doesn't spell out how this would be achieved in practice. This follows the publication in December of a UK government report recommending that the standard copyright term in Europe remain at 50 years (and not be raised to 70 or 95 years)."
United States

Submission + - Brutal Violence Against Russian Homosexuals

Submitted by
reporter
reporter writes: "Another brutal suppression of a public demonstration in Russia has occurred. This time, however, the Russian public actually helped the Russian police to beat up the protestors. According to a BBC report, "A gay rights demonstration in Moscow degenerated into violence for the second year running as right-wing and orthodox extremists attacked gay rights activists and supporters of the unauthorised demonstration. GayRussia leader Nikolai Alexeyev was bundled into a police van and driven away moments after arriving outside the offices of Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who has called homosexuals 'satanic'." Some Western European politicians joined the demonstration in support of the activists. However, Russian bigots attacked them violently, and the Russian police smiled approvingly. "'Where are the police? Why aren't you protecting us?' Mr Cappato [an Italian legislator] shouted as nationalists gathered nearby, prompting officers to take the MEP away and drive him to a police station." A French reporter even snapped a photo of a Russian bigot just before before he punched a British gay rights activist in the face. What, the hell, is happening to Russian society?"
Security

Submission + - PHRACK 64 Released

Submitted by
The Circle of Lost Hackers
The Circle of Lost Hackers writes: "Good news everyone: PHRACK is back ! From the introduction "As long as there is technology, there will be hackers. As long as there are hackers, there will be PHRACK magazine. We look forward to the next 20 years". This is how the PHRACK63 Introduction was ending, telling everybody that the Staff would have changed and to expect a relea se sometimes in 2006/2007. This is that release. This is the new staff.

Introduction by The Circle of Lost Hackers
Phrack Prophile of the new editors by The Circle of Lost Hackers
Phrack World News by The Circle of Lost Hackers
A brief history of the Underground scene by The Circle of Lost Hackers
Hijacking RDS TMC traffic information signal by lcars & danbia
Attacking the Core: Kernel Exploitation Notes by twiz & sgrakkyu
The revolution will be on YouTube by gladio
Automated vulnerability auditing in machine code by Tyler Durden
The use of set_head to defeat the wilderness by g463
Cryptanalysis of DPA-128 by sysk
Mac OS X Wars — A XNU Hope by nemo
Hacking deeper in the system by ankhara
The art of exploitation: Autopsy of cvsxpl by Ac1dB1tch3z
Know your enemy: Facing the cops by Lance
Remote blind TCP/IP spoofing by Lkm
Hacking your brain: The projection of consciousness by keptune
International scenes by Various"
Music

How Microsoft Can Make Zune a Success 305

Posted by Zonk from the long-time-in-coming dept.
jcatcw writes "Zune had potential, but 5 months in it barely gets passing grades. According to the article, there are five things Microsoft must change: 1) The built-in Wi-Fi, aka 'the social,' was a bad idea. 2) Tell newbies what it can do. 3) Create a low-end, flash-based player. 4) Push subscriptions. 5) Make it sexy. A Microsoft representative said, about the wireless concept: 'We felt we were addressing the social aspect of music, and the research we've done has shown that people understand the concept that wireless enables sharing ... but the tagline, while provocative, hasn't meant a lot to consumers.'"
Red Hat Software

Raymond Knocks Fedora, Switches to Ubuntu 608

Posted by Zonk from the one-unhappy-penguin dept.
narramissic writes "After 13 years as a loyal Red Hat user, Eric Raymond, co-founder of the Open Source Initiative, is switching to the Ubuntu distribution. In a message distributed to Linux mailing lists and news organizations, Raymond cited technical issues with Red Hat, such as the way repositories are maintained, the submission process and 'stagnant' development of Red Hat's packaging technology, as well as governance problems, the failure to gain desktop market share and the failure to include proprietary media formats. 'Over the last five years, I've watched Red Hat/Fedora throw away what was at one time a near-unassailable lead in technical prowess, market share and community prestige,' Raymond wrote. 'The blunders have been legion on both technical and political levels.'"
The Almighty Buck

RIAA Hires Artists, Then Sends In the SWAT team 420

Posted by Zonk from the dirty-pool-riaa-dirty-pool dept.
cancan writes "The NY times is carrying an article about how the RIAA is hiring hip hop artists to make mix tapes, and then helping the police raid their studios. In the case of DJ Drama and DJ Don Cannon, they were raided by SWAT teams with their guns drawn. The local police chief said later that they were 'prepared for the worst.' Men in RIAA jackets helped cart away 'evidence'. Just the same, 'Record labels regularly hire mixtape D.J.'s to produce CDs featuring a specific artist. In many cases, these arrangements are conducted with a wink and a nod rather than with a contract; the label doesn't officially grant the D.J. the right to distribute the artist's songs or formally allow the artist to record work outside of his contract.' " This is more of the shenanigans that we've previously discussed on the site.
Upgrades

No Closed Video Drivers For Next Ubuntu Release 448

Posted by kdawson from the defaulting-to-freedom dept.
lisah writes "Ubuntu's next release, Feisty Fawn, is due out in April and, according to company CTO Matt Zimmerman, proprietary video drivers failed to make the cut for the default install. Zimmerman told Linux.com that although the software required for Composite support is not ready for prime-time and therefore will not be included in Feisty, Ubuntu hasn't given up entirely on including video drivers in future releases. '[T]he winds aren't right yet. We will continue to track development and will revisit the decision if things change significantly.' Ambiguous or not, the decision to exclude proprietary drivers for now should satisfy at least some members of the Ubuntu Community. In other Feisty Fawn news, the Board also decided to downgrade support for Power PC due to a lack of funding." Linux.com and Slashdot are both part of OSTG.
Games

Child's Play Tops $1 Million 33

Posted by Zonk from the gamer-pride dept.
ack154 writes "According to today's update to their website, the Child's Play charity has passed the $1 million mark. The final tally is listed at $1,024,400 — more than $400k over last year's total! The final update from their site reads: 'You guys did it. You broke a million dollars in just over two months. Child's Play started as a way to show how good our community can be, but it's turned into something greater than we could have ever imagined. We're making an impact on lives. See you next year.'"
Encryption

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray AACS DRM Cracked 432

Posted by samzenpus from the that-didn't-take-long dept.
EGSonikku writes "According to this article on Endgadget, the AACS DRM used in HD-DVD and Blu-Ray has been cracked. The program allows one to decrypt and dump the video for play on a users hard drive, or it can be burned to a blank HD-DVD and played on a stand-alone player. According to the accompanying video, a source release for the program will be made available in January. Time to get that $200 Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive?" Warning: this link contains video.

Roomba + Wii remote + Perl = Awesome 175

Posted by timothy from the when-buzzword-compliance-is-a-good-thing dept.
Anonymous Wii Lov'n Coward writes "Check out the WiiRoomba, a mashup using a Wii remote, a perl script, and the Darwiin Remote software. While a little sluggish to respond, the Roomba is entirely controlled by the Wii remote accelerometers." All of the source code to do it yourself is available at the site linked, along with a youtube video of how it works.
Science

Penguins Disappearing From Southern Hemisphere 218

Posted by Zonk from the space-penguins-gotta-be dept.
The Scotsman is running a piece looking at the mysterious disappearance of penguins from all around the world. A biologist who studies the rockhopper penguin characterizes the population crash as 'sinister', as scientists are still baffled as to why almost 30% of the birds have vanished. From the article: "Grant Munro, the director of Falklands Conservation, said there were fears that rockhoppers might become extinct. 'If the present situation were to carry on then it's not a particularly great forecast. It doesn't look like they are suddenly going to start increasing in numbers ... In the Falklands, they are part of everyday life. If you head down to the beach you are going to see penguins.'"

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