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Submission + - ACLU: Ohio voting switch may be illegal

Submitted by phorest
phorest writes: Oh the irony! Lawmakers decide to go one way, then the new ones take over and the fun begins! With so many decidedly against electronics in our elections, who would've thought the ACLU is looking to potentially sue the state of Ohio for switching away from Diebold touch-screen voting terminals.

CLEVELAND — The American Civil Liberties Union urged the elections board in the state's most populous county on Thursday not to make a switch to a new voting system for the state's March presidential primary, warning that the move could violate state law.


It appears to me that we'll never again get in our beds after the sweet feeling of democratic voting as when we awake from our slumber, the elections will be tainted from any lame excuse available. Go ACLU!
Media

Submission + - Adobe dumps HD-DVD for Blu-Ray

Submitted by
Miti
Miti writes: "The media wars have taken a sharp turn as Adobe's latest software Premiere Elements package; version 6 will only support export options for Blu-ray rather than HD DVD. Adobe spokesman says that he is not sure why the company wont support the next gen format. However industry sources say that Adobe has cracked under pressure from Sony a close partner who ships all its Vaio PC's with Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements."
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA Tries to Stop RICO Class Action 1

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Last month an Oregon woman, victimized by the RIAA for two years, retaliated by bringing a class action for fraud, RICO, malicious prosecution, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, misuse of copyright law, civil conspiracy, and other assorted wrongs, against the record companies, the RIAA, their investigators, and their 'enforcers', in Andersen v. Atlantic. The opening gambit of the record companies, the RIAA, and the enforcers (Settlement Support Center LLC), all of whom are being represented by the same law firm, has been to file a motion to dismiss Ms. Andersen's complaint. The RIAA's unlicensed "investigators", MediaSentry/Safenet, presumably represented by separate counsel, have yet to respond to the amended complaint. Ms. Andersen is the disabled single mother, who together with her 10 year old daughter, had been pursued by the RIAA for two (2) years, despite the fact that neither of them had ever engaged in file sharing."
Biotech

Journal Journal: So Long, Baiji 175

Journal by ozmanjusri
After 20 million years, Baiji (Yangtze River Dolphin) are now officially extinct http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,292932,00.html.

"It's a relic species, more than 20 million years old, that persisted through the most amazing kinds of changes in the planet," said marine biologist Barbara Taylor at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service. "It's been here longer than the Andes Mountains have been on Earth."
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - iD and Valve violating GPL

Submitted by frooge
frooge writes: With the recent release of iD's catalog on Steam, it appears DOSBox is being used to run the old DOS games for greater compatibility. According to a post on the Halflife2.net forums, however, this distribution does not contain a copy of the GPL license that DOSBox is distributed under, which violates the license. According to the DOSBox developers, they were not notified that it was being used for this release.
Programming

Submission + - Moving away from VB6 to something better 1

Submitted by greendevil
greendevil writes: I'm a software developer currently still developing in VB6 (ignoring all the sniggers from you hard core folk). I've been looking to move away from it to something strongly typed and not managed. I've played with the .NET's C#, but to be honest, the whole idea of managed code doesn't make sense to me as a freelancer. Great for teams and all, but for the individual?? Not so sure. My problem is I don't know what is available out there that does not use managed code, and has c/c++ style. I find the syntax of C++/java/C# far better than VB or delphi. What do you folk think regarding the use of managed code languages? What would you consider as the better language all round to use in a business environment?
Businesses

Submission + - Comcast Blocking FedoraProject.org

Submitted by Kainaw
Kainaw writes: For well over a week, I have not been able to access FedoraProject.org from home (where I use Comcast high-speed Internet). I can access it from work easily. I thought it was a blip for a few days, but then started asking around. Nobody here can access FedoraProject.org through Comcast. I've called and emailed them in the morning and evening for the last three days and I haven't received any worthwhile response. They just tell me to unplug my modem and plug it back in. So, now I'm thinking about the current push by companies like Comcast to charge for preferred Internet service. Is this the first step — blocking Linux sites to push out those "free software" freaks who demand an equal Internet for all?
The Courts

Submission + - Hans Reiser Assigned New Judge, Jury Delayed (cbs5.com)

Submitted by
nz17
nz17 writes: "After being assigned to Alameda County Superior Court Judge Larry Goodman, Hans Reiser, main programmer and designer behind the Reiser File System (Reiser FS), has agreed to a delay on jury selection until August 28. His trial is most likely to begin in October or September. Reiser stands accused of the murder of his wife, Nina Reiser, from whom he is separated. The news article on KPIX TV has the history of the trial, news video segments about its events, and the official statement of the police department in this matter."
United States

Journal Journal: AT&T Co-operating with NSA 2

Journal by ozmanjusri
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFFF) has uncovered more documents detailing secret government surveillance of AT&T's Internet traffic.

Some of information was already publically available, but after negotiations with AT&T, EFF has found new documents describing a secret, secure room in AT&T's facilities that gave the National Security Agency (NSA) direct access to customers' emails and other Internet communications.

Spam

Submission + - ISPs taking steps to begin charging for email (lawbean.com)

Submitted by Spamicles
Spamicles writes: Some of the largest ISPs in the United States have begun to support Goodmail, an email and authentication service that charges money in exchange for guaranteed delivery of email. Goodmail then splits the money with your ISP. Comcast, Cox, Verizon, and Roadrunner join AOL and Yahoo! who are already members of the CertifiedEmail program.
Displays

Submission + - 2.6 metre multi-touch wall in Helsinki (citywall.org)

Submitted by jfanning
jfanning writes: In Helsinki the 'CityWall' has just gone into operation. It is a 2.6 metre long multi-touch interface developed by the Ubiquitous Interaction group at the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology.

The technology developed for the wall would allow displays that are theoretically 16 meters wide and the number of users is limited only by available space. CityWall is described as 'a large multi-touch display installed in a central location in Helsinki which acts as a collaborative and playful interface for the everchanging media landscape of the city.'

The CityWall is designed to support the navigation of media, specifically annotated photos and videos which are continuously gathered in realtime from public sources such as Flickr and YouTube.
Censorship

Submission + - Canada Blocks Fair Use of Video of Parliament (kevinbondelli.com)

Submitted by
PoliSciASU
PoliSciASU writes: "The Canadian House of Commons is exercising complete control over video of its proceedings. The Speaker of the House is restricting the use of its video and is challenging YouTube over posted coverage. Kevin Bondelli argues that Canada is worse on fair use than the United States and that partisan control of access to video is dangerous to society."
Microsoft

Submission + - OOXML Balloting Begun

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The ISO has started the balloting process for the Open Office XML format (aka "ISO/IEC DIS 29500" — all 6000 pages of it). If you want your opinion heard, now is the time to contact your country's local standard body so they can then decide how to vote. Contact information is available for the US, Canada, Germany, and over 100 other countries. The ISO standard will cost you CHF64 to read, but ECMA 376 is available as DOCX and PDF files.
Movies

Submission + - Finnish court rules CSS protection "ineffecti

Submitted by TimoP
TimoP writes: http://www.turre.com/blog/?p=102 Finnish court rules CSS protection used in DVDs "ineffective"

In an unanimous decision released today, Helsinki District Court ruled that Content Scrambling System (CSS) used in DVD movies is "ineffective". The decision is the first in Europe to interpret new copyright law amendments that ban the circumvention of "effective technological measures". The legislation is based on EU Copyright Directive from 2001. According to both Finnish copyright law and the underlying directive, only such protection measure is effective, "which achieves the protection objective." ...

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