Comment Sexual Orientation (Score 1) 354
is a question asked on the Lifestyle polygraph test for a top secret clearance.
Submission + - Wikipedia fights NBC's "Justice" group (10zenmonkeys.com)
destinyland writes: "Wikipedia was labelled a "corporate sex offender" by the group behind NBC Dateline's "To Catch a Predator" series — who also began re-directing any visitors from Wikipedia to a critical page. The group also tagged LiveJournal and YouTube as "offenders" for failing to delete enough accounts of suspected pedophiles. But after a thoughtful debate, Wikipedia simply changed their link-formatting so their readers wouldn't be re-directed. They also allowed the group to continue criticizing Wikipedia's policies on Wikipedia rather than censoring them. Though as this article points out, "Wikipedia remained ungrateful when Perverted Justice helpfully pointed out which Wikipedia editors they thought were pedophiles.""
Sony Open to Considering PS3 Price Cuts 339
njkid1 writes with word that Sony is considering dropping the PS3's price. The Mercury news reports that Sony Senior Vice President Takao Yuhara has admitted they are investigating whether to drop the PlayStation 3 in price around the world, despite statements previously made that the 'lower' PS3 price in Japan is hurting Sony's bottom line. Profits for the company slipped some five percent in the October-December period, and the shortfall expected through March could be even worse than previously predicted. The article points out the possibly risky nature of a price cut for such an expensive item so early in its lifespan, and notes the stiff competition from the Xbox 360 and the Wii.
Submission + - Blacboard issues patent pledge
quan74 writes: "I am writing to share some exciting news about a patent pledge Blackboard is making today to the open source and home-grown course management community. We are announcing a legally-binding, irrevocable, world-wide pledge not to assert any of our issued or pending patents related to course management systems or transaction systems against the use, development or support of any open source or home-grown course management systems." The full text of the pledge can be found here. No mention as to whether they intend to uphold their patents against other commercial vendors though.
Submission + - Three Months of Britain's e-Petition System
eldavojohn writes: "The idea seems simple. Provide feedback for your government via the internet. If enough people sign a petition, address it. That was the idea when an e-Petition site was launched in Nov 06 for Prime Minister Tony Blair. The BBC is reporting on the million or so petitions that the PM has received since the site went live. While most petitions are rejected or ignored, they have a top ten with one petition having 600,000 signers. Is this a valid way to provide feedback to the government or merely an exercise in keeping the populace happy?"
