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Censorship

Submission + - Iran ex-president's website censored and then shut (news.com.au)

Submitted by kaptink
kaptink writes: A website (www.hashemirafsanjani.ir) belonging to Iran's former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who has criticised the current regime, has been shut down, his brother told the ISNA news agency yesterday. Rafsanjani has come under attack for his backing of opposition leader Mir Hossein Musavi in the 2009 presidential election and also for criticizing the postelection crackdown.

Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's office manager and younger brother, Mohammad Hashemi, confirmed today in an interview with Iran's ILNA news agency that the website of the former president and head of the Expediency Council has been blocked after officials intervened over the site's content.

The company providing services to Rafsanjani's site called and said they've been ordered to cut services to the site. "Fifteen minutes later, the site was out of service" ISNA quoted the brother as saying.

"We are going to see on Saturday who gave that order." — He explained that Iran's internet surveillance commission sent an email several days ago requesting that some of the content posted on the site be taken down, specifically speeches made by Rafsanjani during prayers. Hashemi said the request was denied.

Since the election, Iran has blocked dozens of opposition websites, including the website of former reformist President Mohammad Khatami. Opposition members believe Ahmadinejad’s re-election was fraudulent.

A conservative website accused Rafsanjani’s website of seeking to create rifts within the hardline camp ahead of March 12 parliamentary elections.

“Rafsanjani’s site is making efforts to create differences among (conservatives),” the website, bibaknews.com, said late Thursday.

Registration of candidates for the election ends Friday. The country’s major reformist groups are staying out of the race, claiming that basic requirements for free and fair elections have not been met.

In their absence, the poll for the 290-seat assembly is likely to pit candidates who remain staunchly loyal to the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei against those who support Ahmadinejad.

Hashemi says that after the webmaster of the ex-president's website failed to obey authorities' demand to remove the sermons, the website was blocked. He says the order came in an e-mail.

He calls the decision "illegal."

"It wasn't a legal order. In addition, it is not clear who ordered it," Hashemi says.

Submission + - Stephen Hawking looking for personal techie (news.com.au)

Submitted by kaptink
kaptink writes: One of the great grandmasters of space, time and the history of our existance is seeking an assistant to help develop and maintain the electronic speech system that allows him to communicate his vision of the universe.

An informal job ad posted on Stephen's website said the assistant should be computer literate, ready to travel and able to repair electronic devices "with no instruction manual or technical support".

Hawking has long struggled against amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a disease that left him almost completely paralysed.

He lost his real voice in a tracheotomy in 1985, but has something based on NeoSpeech's VoiceText speech synthesiser mounted on his wheelchair that helps synthesise speech by interpreting the twitches of his face. The synthesiser's robotic monotone has become nearly as famous as Hawking himself, but the computer — powered by batteries fastened to the back of Hawking's wheelchair — isn't just for speaking.

It can connect to the internet over mobile phone networks and a universal infrared remote enables the physicist to switch on the lights, watch television, or open doors either at home or at the office.

It's a complicated, tailor-made system, as the ad makes clear. A photograph of the back of Hawking's wheelchair, loaded with coiled wires and electronic equipment, is pictured under the words: "Could you maintain this?"

"If your answer is 'yes', we'd like to hear from you!" the website says.
Hawking's website says that the job's salary is expected to be about $38,500 a year.

Comment lives in Texas, is of Asian descent (Score 1) 465

by kaptink (#37766486) Attached to: Actress Sues IMDb For Revealing Her Age

"The actress - referred to in court documents by the placeholder name Jane Doe - lives in Texas, is of Asian descent and has an Americanised stage name."

Lucy Liu perhaps though she is already 40+ - She is shown on IMDB as DOB 2/12/1968 making her 43 I think. I cant think of any other actresses matching that so she must not be that much of a "well-known" big name star. Perhaps a wannabe big name star who is on the way out and is desperately holding on to the hope someone will hire her.

No surprise on the Texan origin though. That state must be one big court house! I wonder what the golden girls would think of this case. I know they are still getting gigs and they are like almost 100 years old. And what about the girls from Sex and the City?? They must be claiming senior discount by now!

Comment Police report is pretty darn damning (Score 2) 119

by kaptink (#37118328) Attached to: Collar-Bomber Tracked By Gmail Accesses

Reading through the police report pdf the guy appears to be a complete moron. Using his own credit card, car, public internet spots surrounded by CCTV, wearing/keeping the same clothes. Not real smart if you ask me. "A lawyer for Mr Peters said his client would fight the charges against him." - Why bother even trying given the evidence? Save your money or whats left of it for buying your way out of inevitable ass-rapage in jail.

Comment I think he may be in for an ass kicking (Score 2) 93

by kaptink (#36995658) Attached to: Spam King Wallace Indicted For Facebook Spam

I think he may be in for an ass kicking -

"Wallace has also been sued by Facebook, which won a $711 million civil judgement against him. As part of that judgement, he was banned from Facebook, and the criminal indictment accuses Wallace of contempt of court for allegedly logging onto the social network during an April 2009 Virgin Airlines flight from Las Vegas to New York. Wallace also allegedly set up a Facebook profile in January of this year under the user name David Sinful-Saturdays Fredericks."

Either way he should be banned forever from the interwebs for all our sakes. If ever there was a case to throw the book at someone, this would be it.
Idle

Submission + - MS caught cashing in on Winehouse death (news.com.au)

Submitted by kaptink
kaptink writes: Microsoft became a target of online ire over the weekend after the companies Twitter account posted an update inviting people to remember Winehouse by buying digital versions of her Back to Black album at social.zune.net.

MS has since apologised after being blasted for seeming to blatantly cash in on the death of Amy Winehouse.

Comment Gatwick Airport already has em (Score 1) 114

by kaptink (#36861922) Attached to: Heathrow To Install Facial Recognition Scanners

Gatwick Airport already has em in both north and south terminals. They've been installed over the past few months (called Autogates) and still have a lot of bugs in the system. They dont always do what they should. People have successfully talegated others, failed to be recognised and recognised as somebody different (ie family member). Although when they work they are quite cool. Will be interesting to see how they pan out.
Microsoft

Submission + - Did Microsoft steal the tech behind Kinetic? (hackaday.com)

Submitted by kaptink
kaptink writes: In 2009, while Microsoft was busy designing and marketing what would become the Kinect, Carlos Anzola, an inventor, tinkerer, and self-ascribed geek from Bogotá, Colombia, had been working for years on a nearly identical gesture interface for the PC. His creation, the Human interface Electronic Device, or HiE-D – pronounced ‘Heidi’ — was capable of gesture recognition years before Microsoft would release the Kinect.

After developing his gesture recognition device in 2007, Microsoft showed interest in Carlos‘s device – going so far as to request a prototype. Microsoft suggested that he should apply for a patent on his technology. Carlos did just that, sending in patent applications to both the United States Patent and Trademark Office and the World Intellectual Property Organization a mere two days before the announcement of Project Natal and a full seven months before Microsoft applied for their Kinect patent.
While any action on Microsoft’s part would be speculation, we will say that the Kinect is remarkably similar to the HiE-D. Both use a ‘constellation’ of infrared dots projected on the user, and both can are able to detect the ‘skeleton’ of a user for motion control. The image below, from the HiE-D patent, shows how the movement of a face can be tracked.

Today, Carlos is in talks with a few interested companies that would like to produce the HiE-D. He says it would sell for only $50 USD, compared to $140 for a Microsoft Kinect. The HiE-D doesn’t have a camera to capture video of a user, so playing dress up with a HiE-D would be impossible. This wouldn’t be to much of a drawback, because some of the most impressive Kinect hacks we’ve seen wouldn’t change at all with the HiE-D.

Carlos says he’s been in contact with a few lawyers in Boston, who believes he has a case against Microsoft for patent infringement. He’s undecided about how to proceed at this point – Microsoft does have the war chest to go after Google for Android and defend itself over its use of 3D mapping. If we were Carlos, we’d be pretty skeptical about our chances as well.

Comment Already invited? We've temp exceeded capacity. (Score 1) 1223

by kaptink (#36732718) Attached to: Google+ Already At 10 Million Users

I noticed that even with an invite you might be out of luck: "Already invited? We've temporarily exceeded our capacity. Please try again soon."

But I really hope not! And just in case I would love to test this I would also love an invite if a nice person would be awesome and send one to peterniss22 [AT] gmail doot com :)

Really hope I can finally ditch friend face

Submission + - Assange back in court for sex crimes appeal (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by kaptink
kaptink writes: Julian Assange is back in court today to appeal his extradition to Sweden. So far the court has heard more on the incompatibility between UK and Sweden sex crime laws and that the arrest warrant used was essentially flawed. — "Ben Emmerson QC told Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Ousely that the European arrest warrant under which Assange is being held was flawed because it failed to provide a "fair, accurate and proper" description of the alleged sexual misconduct"
The case is currently underway and you can follow events as they happen with the Guardian's live coverage — http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/12/julian-assange-extradition-live-coverage.

Comment Re:Why doesn't the American Media Corporation.... (Score 1) 220

by kaptink (#36703382) Attached to: TSA Employee Stole $50k Worth of Electronics

In the UK at least you cannot get an airside pass without a background check consisting of a criminal history check in all countries you have ever lived, five years employment to a one month resolution and a referee check to cover five years down to a single month resolution as well as a residency check. They are pretty darn meticulous. Perhaps the US should try harder to weed out criminals who are trusted to provide the security and screening to airline passengers? Seems like a good place for terrorists to start applying for jobs.

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