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MSN Music Purchases Not Compatible with Zune 453

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the digital-restrictions-management dept.
lewiz writes "The BBC is reporting that music purchased at MSN Music will not play on the new Zune music player." From the article: "The problem has arisen because tracks from the MSN Music site are compatible with the specifications of the Plays For Sure initiative. This was intended to re-assure consumers as it guaranteed that music bought from services backing it would work with players that supported it. MSN Music, Napster, AOL Music Now and Urge all backed Plays For Sure as did many players from hardware makers such as Archos, Creative, Dell and Iriver. In a statement a Microsoft spokesperson said: 'Since Zune is a separate offering that is not part of the Plays For Sure ecosystem, Zune content is not supported on Plays For Sure devices.'"

China Moving to Real Name Registrations for Blogs 228

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the defeating-the-greater-internet-fuckwad-theory dept.
dptalia writes "China is moving to require people to use their real names when blogging. The proposed solution, arrived at by the Internet Society of China (affiliated with the ministry of information) would allow bloggers to use a pseudonym when blogging as long as they used their real name when registering."

EU Rejects Spam Maker's Trademark Bid 231

Posted by timothy from the how-the-mighty-have-fallen dept.
kog777 writes "The producer of the canned pork product Spam has lost a bid to claim the word as a trademark for unsolicited e-mails. EU trademark officials rejected Hormel Foods Corp.'s appeal, dealing the company another setback in its struggle to prevent software companies from using the word 'spam' in their products, a practice it argued was diluting its brand name. The European Office of Trade Marks and Designs, noting that the vast majority of the hits yielded by a Google search for the word made no reference to the food, said that 'the most evident meaning of the term SPAM for the consumers ... will certainly be unsolicited, usually commercial e-mail, rather than a designation for canned spicy ham.'"

Geekspeak Baffles Web Users 363

Posted by Zonk from the roflcopter dept.
An anonymous reader writes to mention a BBC article on the technology buying public's continued frustration with 'geek speak'. Despite ever-increasing adoption of high tech gadgets in first-world nations, the terms used to describe what these new toys do often elude the people who buy them. From the article: "Acronyms in particular foxed users. 75% of online Britons did not know that VOD stands for video-on-demand, while 68% were unaware that personal video recorders were more commonly referred to as PVRs. Millions of people keep in touch via instant messaging but some 57% of online Brits said they did not know that the acronym for it was IM. 'The technology industry is perhaps the most guilty of all industries when it comes to love of acronyms,' said Mr Burmaster. "

Star Trek XI - What We Know 341

Posted by Zonk from the younger-space-babes-beware dept.
Jean Lucy writes "TwitchGuru has an article outlining in detail what is known about Star Trek XI. The film is in the early stages of production, led by J.J. Abrams (creator of Lost), and the movie will most likely be a prequel featuring Kirk and Spock in their younger years. No word of Matt Damon to play Kirk, though..." From the article: "As reported in early September, even former Star Trek actors are saying that CBS has kicked Rick Berman off the Trek bandwagon. This helps to allay the fears of those who say that 'they' will screw up this movie as 'they' have been doing for the past several years. As Anthony Pascale put it to me, however, 'There is no they any more. Everyone who has worked on Star Trek previously, from the top executives at the studio to the guy who sweeps the floor on-set, is gone. There's now a totally different production team running Star Trek. This is what people have been asking for now for years.'"

Intel Pledges 80 Core Processor in 5 Years 439

Posted by Zonk from the thinking-of-the-gaming dept.
ZonkerWilliam writes "Intel has developed an 80 core processor with claims 'that can perform a trillion floating point operations per second.'" From the article: "CEO Paul Otellini held up a silicon wafer with the prototype chips before several thousand attendees at the Intel Developer Forum here on Tuesday. The chips are capable of exchanging data at a terabyte a second, Otellini said during a keynote speech. The company hopes to have these chips ready for commercial production within a five-year window."

Spaceballs Animated Series in Production 176

Posted by Zonk from the was-this-something-everyone-was-clamoring-for dept.
Keith Russell writes "CNN is reporting that production has started on Spaceballs: The Animated Series, which will start a 13-episode run on G4 next year. Brooks himself will provide the voices of 'two characters', although they don't mention Yogurt or President Skroob by name." From the article: "Like the 1987 movie, which parodied well-known science-fiction movies, 'Spaceballs: The Animated Series' will spoof current blockbusters as well as every genre of entertainment from movies and reality TV to culture and politics. It is set to debut on cable network G4 in fall 2007. Production has already started on an initial batch of 13 episodes."

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day, Me Hearties 206

Posted by Zonk from the arrr-me-grog-be-tainted-by-the-salt-o'-the-sea dept.
nmb3000 writes "Avast, me maties! Today be th' International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Fer today only, ye lubbers no worthy 'nough t' enjoy th' noble vocation o' Pirate can join th' ranks! Firs' ye'll need t' lern t' talk like a pirate, then find yer pirate name, doonload yer ringtones, an' finally sling back some grog. Be smart aboot it, fer today's th' day ninjas fear...ever'one's a pirate! Arrrr!"

Hotel Minibar Key Opens Diebold Voting Machines 341

Posted by kdawson from the expensive-miniatures-and-macademia-nuts dept.
Billosaur writes, "As if Diebold doesn't have enough to worry about! On the Freedom To Tinker blog, Ed Felten, one of the co-authors of the recent report 'Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine', reveals an even more bizarre finding related to the initial report. It turns out that you can gain access to an AccuVote-TS machine using a hotel minibar key. In fact, the key in question is a utilitarian type used to open office furniture, electronic equipment, jukeboxes, and the like. They might as well hand them out like candy."

Copyright Axe To Fall On YouTube? 295

Posted by CowboyNeal from the calm-before-the-storm dept.
theoddball writes "In what should come as no great surprise, Universal Music Group is preparing to file suit against YouTube for copyright infringement, the AP reports. Discussions with the site's owners have broken down (although talks are apparently still progressing with Myspace / News Corp over similar issues). From the article: 'We believe these new businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars,' Universal Music CEO Doug Morris told investors Wednesday at a conference in Pasadena. This development follows last month's announcement that YouTube is negotiating with labels to legally host videos. While the primary complaint is against music videos, one cannot help but wonder if this will also impact the many, many homemade videos using copyrighted UMG songs as a soundtrack (or — *shudder* — a lipsync.)"

Microsoft's High School Opens in PA 601

Posted by Zonk from the i'll-admit-it-i'm-jealous dept.
Joopndufus writes to mention a CNN article about a Microsoft-planned high school, newly opened in the Philadelphia area. Funded entirely by that city's school system, Microsoft offered its management skills and personnel to design every aspect of the high-tech setting. From the article: "After three years of planning, the Microsoft Corp.-designed 'School of the Future' opened its doors Thursday, a gleaming white modern facility looking out of place amid rows of ramshackle homes in a working-class West Philadelphia neighborhood. The school is being touted as unlike any in the world, with not only a high-tech building -- students have digital lockers and teachers use interactive 'smart boards' -- but also a learning process modeled on Microsoft's management techniques."

How Do You Punish a 16-year-old Spammer? 346

Posted by timothy from the with-a-nice-slow-cooked-long-pig-roast dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A 16 year old 'Boy Spammer', David Lennon, has been told by a judge that as punishment for his crimes he can't leave his bedroom for two months during curfew. CNET thinks this is no punishment at all: "With the streets awash with axe murderers, terrorists and paedophiles, staying in and playing games seems like a reasonable response. Given that our kids are growing up as stay-in gamers, the Boy Spammer's curfew is no more punishment for the blighter than sentencing a boy caught speeding to two months on a race track." Apparently Lennon used a piece of email bombing software called Avalanche to wreak revenge on his ex-employer, Domestic and General Group. His five million emails contained the message "You will die in seven days.""

IBM to Buy ISS for $1.3 Billion 219

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the here-comes-the-licensing-shift dept.
gerald626 writes "IBM announced today that they have formed an agreement to purchase ISS for 1.3 billion dollars." From the article: " The all-cash transaction of about $28 per share is meant to bolster IBM's ability to deliver security services to corporations, the company said. ISS builds network protection products and services, including intrusion detection and monitoring tools. IBM said it intends to use ISS's expertise and software to provide more robust security-related services to its corporate customers."

Next Generation Stack Computing 347

Posted by CmdrTaco from the cpu-of-the-fuuuuture dept.
mymanfryday writes "It seems that stack computers might be the next big thing. Expert Eric Laforest talks about stack computers and why they are better than register-based computers. Apparently NASA uses stack computers in some of their probes. He also claims that a kernel would only be a few kilobytes large! I wonder if Windows will be supported on a stack computer in the future?"

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