Comment Waste of time... (Score 1) 321
...and here was me thinking that I'd screwed up my igoogle by tinkering around with greasemonkey too much.
Well that was a wasted two hours. I guess I should read the blog more.
Damn.
British Astronomers Turn To Interstellar Spam 60
Barrista En Flambe alerts us to a stunt that may reflect the desperate funding crisis in British astronomy: astronomers have agreed to beam a 30-second Doritos ad to a solar system 42 light years from Earth. The transmission is being directed at the solar system of 47 Ursae Majoris, a star similar to the Sun which has planets and may have a habitable zone.
Submission + - 30th Anniversary of the Wow! Signal
Himring writes: Today marks the 30th anniversary of the single most significant event, to date, that points to possible evidence of ETI. On this day in 1977, Dr. Jerry R. Ehman circled data retrieved from the "Big Ear" radio telescope of the Ohio State University Radio Observatory. The telescope has since been destroyed, and although other, modern telescopes have tried (such as the VLA) none of have successfully reproduced the results of that day. By and large, all possibilities of an earth-based signal causing the event have been ruled out as well as any possible natural phenomenon. Still, Dr. Ehman has remained reserved and stated that he doesn't want to draw, "vast conclusions from half-vast data." Here is the link to Dr. Ehman's 30th Anniversary Report.
Journal Journal: Pay to the order of...: $e^(i*pi) +1 5
One of the Subversion heads received a bill from the Mathematical Association of America for $0.00. Naturally, he took the opportunity to send them a check for e^(i*pi)+1, which went tragically uncashed. Adding to the fun, it was check number 1729! (I'd provide clarification, but if you don't laugh at this as written, an explanation won't help...)
Submission + - Are there images of the Lunar Landers from orbit?
banditski writes: "We have pictures of Mars rovers from taken from orbit like this photo of Opportunity but we don't we have them of lunar landers from 60's and 70's? At least I couldn't find them. If they do exist, where? And if they don't exist, why not?"
Submission + - Blue Ray beaten by...Print Screen
An anonymous reader writes: German mag C't has discovered you can record protected high-def flicks in full resolution via automating the print screen function of the provided Intervideo WinDVD software. Both Sony's Vaio and Toshiba's Qosmio laptops with Blu-ray and HD DVD drives respectively come bundled with the software, and are vulnerable to the hack. Quite simply, it can be used to capture the movies frame-by-frame, and then reassembled to create the entire movie. Not the most elegant solution, but they claim it works.
http://www.engadgethd.com/2006/07/07/blu-ray-and-h d-dvd-copy-protection-defeated-by-print-screen/
Submission + - Bizarre Fixes for Bizzare Problems
tezbobobo writes: I recently have been trying to access a damaged 2.5" harddrive when I came across a suggestion to freeze it and use a cavity. It worked like a charm. More bizarrely I came across this fix for a broken ibook recently and was wondering what else is out there. You know, strange solutions to strange problems.
Submission + - Domain google.de apparently kidnapped
Christian_Franz_LL.M writes: "On tuesday night, someone appears to have managed to be registered as the holder of the domain "google.de". The service of the German section of Google Inc. was unavailable, displaying only an "under construction" message.
This appears to be an extraordinarily spectacular attempt in suicide, lest the apperent new domain holder, a Mr. Martin Rusteberg of Germany, happens to hold prior rights in the string "google". A quick search revealed that there are no trade marks registered in Germany (https://dpinfo.dpma.de/protect/mar.html), with OAMI with respect to European trade marks (http://oami.europa.eu/CTMOnline/RequestManager/) nor with the WIPO with respect to so-called international trade marks that might have been extended to cover Germany (http://www.wipo.int/ipdl/en/search/madrid/search- struct.jsp). This should allow Google Inc. to sort out the problem by means of an injunction by a German court within the day or a couple of days at most.
This might be different though, should the current domain holder turn out to have any other kind of rights in the string "google" himself, e.g. using it as a company identifier prior to Goolge Inc.'s market entry in Germany.
Unlike other TLDs, the German registrar DENIC e.G. (http://www.denic.de)does not provide a dispute resolution procedure. That means that the possible kidnapping of the domain will be subject to German jurisdiction. That means that while, for example, the ICANN Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (http://www.icann.org/udrp/) allows for "soft arguments" to be brought forward and domains to be transferred directly if there is no response by the defendant, arbitration in front of a German court could turn out to be more difficult that one might, at first sight, expect.
Whilst there can be little doubt that google would eventually succeed in regaining the domain due to it's overwhelming fame, the path to victory could turn out stony.
There is juristdiction by Germany's Federal Court of Justice that accepts that in a conflict of prior rights, the rights of a party that has what has been described as "an absolute reputation", prevail (BGH, Urt. v. 22.11.01, I ZR 138/99 — shell.de, http://netlaw.de/urteile/bgh_13.htm).
Still, it is rather unlikely that this concept would be sufficient to allow Google Inc. to achieve an injunction under German law. This is due to the requirement that no injunction must anticipate the final decision — which would be the case if the current domain holder was forced to cancel the domain.
By the way: under German law, no right holder can ask for a domain to be transferred. It has to be cancelled and can then be re-registered by the rights holder. Google Inc. will have to ask for a so called dispute entry by the registrar Denic e.G., which will bar the domain from any further transactions, and then go to court really, really quickly.
Depending on whether or not the current registrant has any prior rights, this might turn out as a finacial suicide or the easiest way to earn real money without any effort at all — if, which is not unlikely, Google Inc. decides to cut things short and buy the new registrant out. Which, I have a tinkle, may have been the idea in the first place.
Still, this is high rolling: from both a legal and a financial point of view, it would have been less risky just to rob a bank. It's probably just that geeks aren't any good at this sort of thing, in contrast to the fine detail of domain registration policies...
For further information on German internet law, visit http://www.netlaw.de/ or just ask: cfranz@christianfranz.net.
Christian Franz, LL.M.
Rechtsanwalt
(Attorney at Law)
Düsseldorf, Germany"
This appears to be an extraordinarily spectacular attempt in suicide, lest the apperent new domain holder, a Mr. Martin Rusteberg of Germany, happens to hold prior rights in the string "google". A quick search revealed that there are no trade marks registered in Germany (https://dpinfo.dpma.de/protect/mar.html), with OAMI with respect to European trade marks (http://oami.europa.eu/CTMOnline/RequestManager/) nor with the WIPO with respect to so-called international trade marks that might have been extended to cover Germany (http://www.wipo.int/ipdl/en/search/madrid/search
This might be different though, should the current domain holder turn out to have any other kind of rights in the string "google" himself, e.g. using it as a company identifier prior to Goolge Inc.'s market entry in Germany.
Unlike other TLDs, the German registrar DENIC e.G. (http://www.denic.de)does not provide a dispute resolution procedure. That means that the possible kidnapping of the domain will be subject to German jurisdiction. That means that while, for example, the ICANN Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (http://www.icann.org/udrp/) allows for "soft arguments" to be brought forward and domains to be transferred directly if there is no response by the defendant, arbitration in front of a German court could turn out to be more difficult that one might, at first sight, expect.
Whilst there can be little doubt that google would eventually succeed in regaining the domain due to it's overwhelming fame, the path to victory could turn out stony.
There is juristdiction by Germany's Federal Court of Justice that accepts that in a conflict of prior rights, the rights of a party that has what has been described as "an absolute reputation", prevail (BGH, Urt. v. 22.11.01, I ZR 138/99 — shell.de, http://netlaw.de/urteile/bgh_13.htm).
Still, it is rather unlikely that this concept would be sufficient to allow Google Inc. to achieve an injunction under German law. This is due to the requirement that no injunction must anticipate the final decision — which would be the case if the current domain holder was forced to cancel the domain.
By the way: under German law, no right holder can ask for a domain to be transferred. It has to be cancelled and can then be re-registered by the rights holder. Google Inc. will have to ask for a so called dispute entry by the registrar Denic e.G., which will bar the domain from any further transactions, and then go to court really, really quickly.
Depending on whether or not the current registrant has any prior rights, this might turn out as a finacial suicide or the easiest way to earn real money without any effort at all — if, which is not unlikely, Google Inc. decides to cut things short and buy the new registrant out. Which, I have a tinkle, may have been the idea in the first place.
Still, this is high rolling: from both a legal and a financial point of view, it would have been less risky just to rob a bank. It's probably just that geeks aren't any good at this sort of thing, in contrast to the fine detail of domain registration policies...
For further information on German internet law, visit http://www.netlaw.de/ or just ask: cfranz@christianfranz.net.
Christian Franz, LL.M.
Rechtsanwalt
(Attorney at Law)
Düsseldorf, Germany"
Submission + - Porn for Christmas? Microsoft Thinks So.
MrCrassic writes: "A family in Chicago received the gift of pornography for Christimas — upon buying a "new" Microsoft Zune player for Wal-Mart, their daughter was surprised to find pictures and videos of homosexual orgies pre-loaded on her player. Click on the link for a video of the report and a quick read."
