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Nintendo

Submission + - Nintendo Power--The End of an Era 1

Submitted by
Guppy06
Guppy06 writes: "Starting with volume 222 in December, Nintendo will no longer be in charge of its own dedicated magazine, Nintendo Power, instead handing the reins over to Future US, publisher of other gaming magazines such as PC Gamer, Official Xbox Magazine, and Playstation: The Official Magazine. Nintendo started Nintendo Power from its original "Nintendo Fun Club" back in 1988 and since then the magazine has been the official mouthpiece of the company to its fanbase, often being the medium used for new announcements, such as the development of the now-classic Game Boy and Super NES. Similarly, it seems Nintendo is no longer publishing its own video game guides, which were published under the Nintendo Power name; recent flagship titles such as Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass only have Nintendo-authorized guides published by Prima available."
Power

Submission + - 30 Year Laptop battery (nextenergynews.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory is funding work into power sources, that the article from Next Energy News claims could provide a very powerful energy source:

As the radioactive material decays it emits beta particles that transform into electric power capable of fueling an electrical device like a laptop for years. Although betavoltaic batteries sound Nuclear they're not, they're neither use fission/fusion or chemical processes to produce energy and so (do not produce any radioactive or hazardous waste). Betavoltaics generate power when an electron strikes a particular interface between two layers of material. The Process uses beta electron emissions that occur when a neutron decays into a proton which causes a forward bias in the semiconductor.
I don't know enough about nuclear science to determine if this is bunk or not (and I'm skeptical of some of the claims made in the article), but it sounds too good to be true, especially since the time to market is 2-3 years and that, given the length of the article, it seems more like a fluff piece.

At this energy density, doesn't fusion become less important? What do you think of the reality of this design and any health issues that may arise — the article implies no radioactive waste, but the EPA seems to imply beta radiation has some serious health consequences.
Patents

Submission + - IBM Patents Checking a Box

Submitted by
theodp
theodp writes: "Q. What do you call it when you drag a pointer over a checkbox to select or deselect it depending on its original state? A. US Patent 7,278,116! On Tuesday, the USPTO awarded IBM a patent for Mode Switching for Ad Hoc Checkbox Selection, aka Making an 'X'. BTW, isn't this essentially the same concept as the older Lotus Notes selection model that IBM was recently asked to reintroduce?"
The Courts

Submission + - How should I have responded to RIAA lawyer? 10

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The RIAA's lawyers are a bit jumpy these days since their standard "making available" boilerplate was rejected by the Court in Interscope v. Rodriguez. But I still never expected, when I initiated a dismissal motion in Elektra v. Schwartz, that they would be reaching out to me , of all people, for help. But so they did, asking me "in the interest of efficiency... what precisely Defendant contends is lacking from Plaintiffs' Complaint for Defendant to consider it sufficient. Perhaps Plaintiffs may be able to satisfy these alleged deficiencies and spare both parties additional and unnecessary motions practice." Unfortunately my response was not very helpful; I couldn't think of anything better than to say, more or less, that "Plaintiffs have no case whatsoever against Ms. Schwartz, and their case against her was frivolous in its inception. Accordingly, there are no facts they can allege that will satisfy the plausibility standard." On reflection, I'm feeling kind of guilty that I didn't give them a more creative, and helpful answer, and I thought to turn to my friends at Slashdot, who are (a) almost always helpful, and (b) always creative. What would you have said?"
Announcements

Submission + - Copyright Insanity - STEAK BOMB Sub Now Coyrighted

Submitted by Travicane
Travicane writes: The "Steak Bomb" has been a staple on New England Pizza and Sub shop menus for about 3 decades. Somehow the folks who grant Copyrights have seen fit to grant a copyright for "Steak Bomb" to an obscure sub shop in Derry NH. This company now considers itself the exclusive owner of the Menus and advertising name "Steak Bomb". and has now sued a neighboring restaurant. This seems to be more evidence of the total incompetence (or venality) of the people responsible for granting Copyrights, than on the Laws. Any honest, even stupid, reviewer of the application would have rejected it after a single Web search of the tern "Steak Bomb". The granter apparently worked (delayed?) several years to mistakenly approve it. If the my attempt to post this I noticed that the \. topic and associations do not seem to cover much of what I see on the site, (they seem to be woefully out of date, but are mandatory to actually post). Terms like DRM. copyright, intellectual property, etc would seem to be obvious since given the frequency of posts by staff/regulars that cover these topics. http://www.cmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070830/NEWS01/708300354/1012/NEWS
Education

Submission + - Student Attacked After Dropping Cake (infowars.net) 17

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: "School security guards in Palmdale, CA have been caught on camera assaulting a 16-year-old girl and breaking her arm after she spilled some cake during lunch and left some crumbs on the floor after cleaning it up. The girl, Pleajhai Mervin, told Fox News LA that she was bumped while queuing for lunch and dropped the cake. After being ordered to clean it up and then re-clean the spot three times, she attempted to leave the area out of embarrassment but was jumped on by security who forced her onto a table, breaking her wrist in the process."
Debian

Submission + - Debian refuses to push timezone update for NZ DST (debian.org)

Submitted by Jasper Bryant-Greene
Jasper Bryant-Greene writes: Although a tzdata release which includes New Zealand's recent DST changes (2007f) has been out for some time, Debian are refusing to push the update from testing into the current stable distribution, codenamed Etch, on the basis that "it's not a security bug". This means that unless New Zealand sysadmins install the package manually, pull the package from testing, or alter the timezone to "GMT-13" manually, all systems running Debian Etch in New Zealand currently have the incorrect time, as DST went into effect this morning. As the last comment in the bug report says, "even Microsoft are not this silly".
Biotech

Submission + - Bringing Patients Back from the Dead (msn.com) 1

Submitted by FattyBoeBatty
FattyBoeBatty writes: Interesting article claiming that patients generally don't die from lack of oxygen — but from the rapid reintroduction of it. Cells without oxygen can conceivably live for upwards of an hour without any damage. While this idea is already proving successful in small ER trials, this may change the way emergency medicine is delivered around the world.
XBox (Games)

Submission + - Bungie argues 640p is enough for anyone. (bungie.net) 2

Submitted by
AHuxley
AHuxley writes: "Smart people in the Beyond 3D forums have found that
Bungie's Halo 3 did meet the HD resolution of 720p.
Some math and Photoshop showed that Halo 3 was near 624p.
Bungie sees this as a "distracted conversation" in a short statement about "640 pixels", "lighting"
and "interweb detectives"."
United States

Submission + - Font Freedom Day (trumpetpower.com)

Submitted by
TrumpetPower!
TrumpetPower! writes: "On September 29, 1988, the Library of Congress Copyright Office issued a notice of policy decision (4 Mbyte coralized PDF) in the Federal Register “to inform the public that the Copyright Office has decided that digitized representations of typeface designs are not registrable under the Copyright Act because they do not constitute original works of authorship.” In observance of Font Freedom day, go ahead and share some of your favorite fonts with your friends — and do so entirely guilt-free!"
Privacy

Submission + - Police issue Death Threats to Man with Camera 9

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Cops in St. Louis have taken objection over a local man filming their abuses of power, and have responded with death threats, and stalking. The guy they're harassing installed a pretty neat video system in his car after having received a speeding ticket that he that was unfair. What he ended up catching on tape was far worse than a speeding ticket. Luckily the news has picked up on it, so he is probably out of immediate danger.
Music

Submission + - Apple's aims to stop second-hand iPod trading (cnet.co.uk) 4

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: CNet is running a story that highlights how Apple's apparently generous offering of free iPod engraving, is actually an effort to curb any resale of used iPods. This stops any second-hand trading and forces buyers to seek brand-new models, full-price, directly from Apple. One commenter notes that this engraving also voids any option of replacement iPods through AppleCare.
Privacy

Submission + - Police busted after tracking device found on car (stuff.co.nz)

Submitted by uh oh
uh oh writes: A New Zealand police operation to covertly follow a Central Otago man came to an abrupt halt this week when the man found tracking devices planted in his car, ripped them out and listed them for auction on Trade Me. Ralph Williams, of Cromwell, said he found the devices last week in his daughter's car, which he uses, and in his flatmate's car after the cars were seized by police and taken away for investigation.
The Internet

Submission + - Porn industry bands together against Bittorrent 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Acording P2P Blog to AVN: It's been a well-know fact that a lot of the content swapped on P2P networks is porn. Even so, adult entertainment companies have been on the sideline of the fight against P2P piracy, leaving the mass lawsuit campaigns to their colleagues from the music industry and relying on mainstream Hollywood for anti-piracy lobbying. Five companies nevertheless decided to go forward and form a lose alliance with the goal of eventually establishing an industry association to initiate anti-piracy lawsuits. More can be found here : http://www.p2p-blog.com/item-361.html and here : http://www.avn.com/index.cfm?objectid=70F9F731-B1E E-818D-931BEAF17B36C7C6&articleid=DD5F351A-D142-61 98-043BDF47539D8467

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