54428259
submission
Sockatume writes:
The IEC, the standards body which wrote the phone charger specification used in the EU, has approved a standardised laptop charger. While the "DC Power Supply for Portable Personal Computer" doesn't have a legal mandate behind it, the IEC is still optimistic that it will lead to a reduction in electronics waste and make it easier to find a replacement charger. Unfortunately the technical documentation does not seem to be available yet, but previous comments indicate that it will be a barrel plug of some kind.
54402575
submission
Sockatume writes:
Since 2011, Amazon Instant Video has sold a series of Christmas shorts from Disney called "Prep and Landing". Unfortunately this holiday season, Disney has had a change of heart and has decided to make the shorts exclusive to its own channels. Showing an abundance of Christmas cheer, the Mickey Mouse company went so far as to retroactively withdrawn the shows from Amazon, so that customers who have already paid for them no longer have access. Apparently this reverse-Santa facility is a feature Amazon provides all publishers, and customers have little recourse but to go cap-in-hand to a Disney outlet and pay for the shows again.
52506077
submission
Sockatume writes:
Sony has released a detailed FAQ for the PS4 system, which launches in coming weeks. Of particular note: although Bluetooth headsets will not be compatible, generic 3.5mm and USB audio devices will work; the console will require activation via the internet or a special disk before it will play Blu-ray or DVDs; media servers, MP3s, and audio CDs are not supported. The console's "suspend/resume" and remote assistance features are listed as unavailable for the North American launch, implying that they will be patched in before the console launches in Europe later in November.
52481245
submission
Sockatume writes:
The BBC is reporting that Dell's Latitude 6430u Ultrabooks have an interesting characteristic you won't find in any Macbook Air: the palmrest emits an odour like cat urine. An issue with a manufacturing process is thought to be to blame. Although Dell has assured potential customers that the issue has been fixed, reports in the Dell support forum indicate that units with the novel fragrance continue to ship out to users. Dell staff state that the palmrest will be replaced by Dell at no cost, but only if the unit is still under warranty.
50967115
submission
Sockatume writes:
By now you have likely read about the alien life forms discovered in the upper atmosphere of Yorkshire, via of mass media reprinting a press release from the University of Sheffield. Unfortunately, the paper comes from researchers with an infamous tendency to identify inanimate objects as aliens, and is published in a journal that seems to principally exist to print unlikely astrobiological claims.
49682291
submission
Sockatume writes:
Marcus "Notch" Persson of Minecraft fame has indefinitely posponed his planned space game, 0x10c. Taking time to chat during a streamed TF2 game, Notch explained that he didn't have the energy to keep up with the community's interest; fans had gone so far as to transcribe the source code from his development livestream. The game's development had been stalled since April this year, when Notch explained that it simply wasn't fun to play, but other staff at Mojang can resume the project if they wish. He intends to continue his pre-Minecraft habits and "make small games and talk to other game developers about them". Text coverage at the BBC.
46458321
submission
Sockatume writes:
The Sunday Times has revealed that analytics firm Ipsos MORI and 4G network EE attempted to sell detailed information on 27m subscribers' activities to various parties including the UK's police forces. The data encompasses the gender, postcode and age of subscribers, the sites they visit and times they are visited, and the places and times of calls and text messages. Ipsos MORI were reportedly "bragging that the data can be used to track people and their location in real time to within 100 metres" in negotiations. Ipsos MORI has rushed to contradict this in an effort to save face, stating that the users are anonymised and data is aggregated into groups of 50 or more, while location is only precise to 700m. Whether they were lying to their prospective customers or are now lying to EE's subscribers is left as a puzzle for the interested reader.
Despite their prior enthusiasm, the police have indicated that they will no longer go ahead with the deal. It is not clear whether the other sales will go ahead. The article is paywalled, however it has been reported on at The Enquirer, PC Pro and Information Age.
42519277
submission
Sockatume writes:
The UK's information protection authority, the ICO, has fined Sony for failing to adequately secure the information of PlayStation Network users. The investigation was triggered by a 2011 security breach, during which personally identifying information (including password hashes) was recovered from a Sony database where it had been stored without encryption. In the ICO's view Sony's security measures were inadequate, and the attack could have been prevented. The £250,000 (ca. $400,000) fine, the largest the ICO has ever imposed, is equivalent to a few pennies per affected user. Sony disagrees with the ICO's decision and intends to appeal.
27159502
submission
Sockatume writes:
Ars Technica is reporting that Google has given the music conglomerate UMG the right to arbitrarily eliminate YouTube videos. When UMG had Megaupload's "Mega Song" removed from the site, it was assumed that they had made a DMCA claim, and that Youtube was responding under its "safe harbour" obligations. Megaupload's legal response argues that UMG has no grounds to request a DMCA takedown. However in court filings, UMG claims that its licencing agreement with Google gives it the power and authority to unilaterally wipe videos from the site, bypassing the DMCA entirely. If true, that means that your activities on Google are not just curtailed by the law, but by the terms of their secret agreements with media conglomerates.
18711522
submission
Sockatume writes:
In the third part of his investigation into shamed medic Andrew Wakefield, Brian Deer reveals how the journal which published the research and the hospital which funded it closed ranks when presented with evidence of misconduct, automatically clearing the besieged doctor without performing an investigation. "Documents, emails, and replies ... show the journal's editor, the paper's senior authors, and the Royal Free medical school, frantically mobilising against me. Were it not for the GMC case ... the fraud by which Wakefield concocted fear of MMR would forever have been denied and covered up."
18568994
submission
Sockatume writes:
In his second report, Brian Deer exposes how MMR-autism prophet Andrew Wakefield aimed to profit from the vaccine scare. Two years before the research that "discovered" the MMR-autism link, Wakefield began courting interest in a hundred-million-dollar diagnostics firm. The doctor hoped to seed the company with government legal aid money and profit by charging "premium prices" for new diagnostic tests to be used in vaccine injury lawsuits. By the time Wakefield published, the proposals had expanded into producing new "safe" vaccines, two businesses to gather legal aid funding, and interest from partners including Wakefield's own hospital. The scheme ultimately disintegrated with the arrival of new leadership at Wakefield's hospital and ongoing scrutiny into his research.
17953704
submission
Sockatume writes:
The first eight ACS:Law cases have reached the courts, and have already fallen on their face. The law firm hit the headlines when it demanded money from tens of thousands of Britons for illegal file sharing, threatening legal action. It seems its bark was worse than its legal bite, as default judgements have been refused in six of the cases for such egregious errors as attempting to make a claim when one is not even the copyright holder. Two of the cases were found in default as the defendants had failed to respond, but not on the merits of ACS:Law's case.
14743394
submission
Sockatume writes:
Shortly after Steve Jobs' "antennagate" press conference, Apple began hosting videos showing signal attenuation on rivals' phones. Said rivals were not pleased, with RIM accusing Apple of deliberately misdirecting the press into equating the iPhone's unique signal quirk with normal signal degradation. As subsequent testing by multiple outlets confirms the iPhone 4's stronger-than-usual signal drop, Apple has quietly taken down the videos. While no explanation has been given, Apple recently included a video on Droid X attentuation which tech outlets struggled to reproduce, as the grip in the Apple video only covered one of the handset's two cellular antennas.
8650494
submission
Sockatume writes:
Residents in Craigavon, South Africa complained of "[h]eadaches, nausea, tinnitus, dry burning itchy skins, gastric imbalances and totally disrupted sleep patterns" after an iBurst communications tower was put up in a local park. Symptoms subsided when the residents left the area, often to stay with family and thus evade their suffering. At a public meeting with the afflicted locals, the tower's owners pledged to switch off the mast immediately to assess whether it was responsible for their ailments. One problem: the mast had already been switched off for six weeks. Lawyers representing the locals say their case against iBurst will continue on other grounds.
7234238
submission
Sockatume writes:
The UK's Human Genetics Commission has published its report on the collection of DNA by the Police forces in England and Wales. Currently, Police collect DNA from every suspect in a case which could lead to a criminal record, and retain that material, which the European Court of Human Rights has ruled illegal. The government plans to keep all DNA samples for suspects from England, Wales and Northern Ireland for up to six years, except for DNA from individuals arrested during terrorism-related investigations, which will be retained forever. The report states that the police frequently performed arrests solely to collect DNA, that certain demographics (such as young, black men) where "very highly over-represented", that there was "very little concrete evidence" that the DNA database had any actual use in investigating crime, and that the database contained material from individuals arrested in Scotland and Northern Ireland, outside its remit. Of the 4.5m individuals in the database, a fifth have never received any convictions or cautions from the Police. The report recommends that an independent advisory body oversee the database, and that laws be passed to limit the uses of the database, while tracking those with access to it, and making misuse of the information a criminal offence.
