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Comment Re:PR advice (Score 1, Informative) 703

MADD has very little to do with drunk driving or parents at this stage. Even their original founder (who DID loose a child to a drunk driver) is disgusted with them at this point.

The modern version of MADD is more about making money (mmm.. corrupt fundraising) and trying to push neo-prohibition based of iffy 'science'
Plus, if you want to read up on how MADD pushes crap science to try and push their neo-prohibiton agenda, read this:

http://www.duicenter.com/lectures/exception01.html.

It's long, but well worth the read.

The Courts

Hans Reiser and the "Geek Defense" Strategy 738

lseltzer alerts us to a story in the Washington Post on the defense strategy in the Hans Reiser murder trial. "In the courtroom where Hans Reiser is on trial for murder, [the evidence] might appear to indicate guilty knowledge. But his attorneys cast it as evidence of an innocence peculiar to Hans, a computer programmer so immersed in the folds of his own intellect that he had no idea how complicit he was making himself appear. 'Being too intelligent can be a sort of curse,' defense counsel William Du Bois said. 'All this weird conduct can be explained by him, but he's the only one who can do it. People who are commonly known as computer geeks are so into the field.'"
Music

Submission + - Apple cracks down on the Hymn Project (hymn-project.org) 2

An anonymous reader writes: Ever since the initial launch of the iTunes Music Store, an intrepid group of programmers over at the Hymn Project have engaged in a marvelous cat-and-mouse game with Apple. Now they're finally being hobbled by Apple's lawyers.

The purpose of the project has always been to provide software that can be used to losslessly remove Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection from music purchased through iTunes, so that the buyer may exercise their right of fair use and play the music on non-Apple devices (Hear Your Music aNywhere).

The software has gone through many incarnations. The original hymn has been succeeded by JHymn, QTFairUse6, MyFairTunes, and others. Regardless of the program, the emphasis has always been squarely on fair use — not piracy. Any discussions of piracy have been strongly and actively discouraged on the site's forums.

For years now, Apple has been content to mostly ignore the Hymn Project. At worst, they would introduce subtle changes to new versions of iTunes that would break the Hymn software. Nobody really knows if this was done intentionally, but it was usually just a matter of time before a new solution was found. This seemed like a reasonable approach for Apple to take. After all, why should they care? The DRM was only in place to placate the record companies. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has even expressed his opinion that all music should be free of DRM.

Well, now things have changed. Recently, a new program called Requiem was announced that appears to be a complete crack of the iTunes DRM scheme. Previous programs had relied on various forms of trickery or memory hooks to access the unencrypted audio data — none had ever completely cracked the encryption algorithms.

Requiem seems to have been the last straw. Earlier this week, the ISP hosting the site received a Cease and Desist order from Apple Legal, demanding that all downloads be removed from the site, and that the site post no links to any programs that could remove DRM from Apple music or video. Reportedly, similar C & D orders were also sent to at least one of the project's developers, and to another ISP where Reqiuem had been hosted. Ironically, Requiem was never actually hosted on the Hymn site — merely mentioned and linked to in one of the forums. Nevertheless, the Hymn Project has now come into the crosshairs of Apple's lawyers and, lacking legal resources, has seen no choice but to comply with the order.

Transportation

100-MPG Air-Powered Car Headed To US Next Year 449

An anonymous reader sends us to Popular Mechanics for word on a New York automaker with plans to introduce a US version of the air-powered car, with which India's Tata Motors made a splash last year. Zero Pollution Motors plans a sub-$18,000, 6-passenger vehicle that can hit 96 mph and gets over 100 MPG, using an untried dual engine — the air-powered motor being supplemented by a second (unspecified) engine that would kick in above 35 MPH. The company estimates that "a vehicle with one tank of air and, say, 8 gallons of either conventional petrol, ethanol, or biofuel could hit between 800 and 1000 miles." The vehicle could be introduced to the market as early as 2009.
Patents

Submission + - Vonage III: The Bloodletting (reuters.com)

kickabear writes: "AT&T have filed a lawsuit against popular target Vonage, claiming patent infringement. This is the third major lawsuit to have been brought against Vonage by a major phone company. Vonage lost the previous two lawsuits, brought by Sprint-Nextel and Verizon. How much more money can Vonage afford to give away? How can Vonage educate a jury on prior art?"
Censorship

Submission + - Breathtaking Abuse of the Constitution 2

ziggy_az writes: Michael Lacey, the executive editor of Village Voice Media, and Jim Larkin, the CEO of the Phoenix-based chain, were both arrested on Thursday, the very same day their story was published in the Phoenix New Times. The New Times is a free, weekly alternative paper. "It is just without precedent," Lacey said. "This isn't us overreacting." The grand jury subpoenas in question demand "all documents related to articles and other content published by Phoenix New Times newspaper in print and on the Phoenix New Times website, regarding Sheriff Joe Arpaio from January 1, 2004 to the present." Additionally, they want "Hit counts for each page..." regarding specific articles criticizing Sheriff Joe Arpaio as well as "The Internet Protocol" addresses of any and all visitors to each page...". Fair warning to the Phoenix New Times readership: Joe's gang may come-a-looking for you.
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA Accepts $300 Offer of Judment in Carolina

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "In a North Carolina case, Capitol v. Frye, the RIAA has accepted a $300 offer of judgment made by the defendant. This is the first known use, in the RIAA v. Consumer cases, of the formal offer of judgment procedure which provides that if the plaintiff doesn't accept the offer, and doesn't later get a judgment for a larger amount, the plaintiff is responsible for all of the court costs from that point on in the case. The accepted judgment in the Frye case (pdf) also contains an injunction — much more limited than the RIAA's typical "settlement" injunction (pdf) — under which defendant agreed not to infringe plaintiffs' copyrights."
First Person Shooters (Games)

Submission + - Doom 2 Under Linux

An anonymous reader writes: The developers over at Skulltag have successfully ported their popular online port of Doom 2 over to Linux. 97D Beta 4 also includes Demo Recording as well as many other minor fixes. Check out the full changelog and download it here.
Wine

Submission + - Info About Urine Alcohol Tests (chamberli.org)

denman3 writes: "Since urine alcohol tests are cost-effective ways to detect alcohol, and due to the fact that alcohol testing is increasing in importance at many organizations, institutions, and companies, urine alcohol tests will continue to be one of the key methods used to detect alcohol consumption in American workplaces."
Biotech

Submission + - Soy Bad For You. . ? (alternet.org)

Fantastic Lad writes: "Studies showing the dark side of soy date back 100 years," says Kaayla Daniel, PhD, clinical nutritionist and author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food. "The 1999 FDA-approved health claim pleased big business, despite massive evidence showing risks associated with soy, and against the protests of the FDA's own top scientists. Soy is a global four-billion-dollar industry that's taken these health claims to the bank." Soy, indigenous to Eastern Asia, where it was once considered toxic and used only as a cover crop, is today everywhere in our food supply, as the star in cereals and health-promoting foods or hidden discreetly in processed foods. A common misconception is that Asians are consuming more soy than they actually are; soy accounts for only about 15 percent of their total calories, or nine grams per day. Asian diets include small amounts of primarily fermented soy products, such as miso, natto, and tempeh, and some tofu. By contrast, in the US, processed soy food snacks or shakes can contain over 20 grams of soy protein in one serving.
Microsoft

Microsoft Votes to Add ODF to ANSI Standards List 231

RzUpAnmsCwrds writes "In a puzzling move, Microsoft today voted to support the addition of the OpenDocument file formats to the American National Standards List. OpenDocument is used by many free-software office suites, including OpenOffice.org. Microsoft is still pushing its own Office Open XML format, which it hopes will also become an ANSI standard. Is Microsoft serious about supporting ODF, or is this a merely a PR stunt to make Office Open XML look more like a legitimate standard?"
Patents

Submission + - USPTO Calls BS on 1-Click Patent Claims

theodp writes: "Seeking to extend the reach of CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click patent, Amazon ran into a very unimpressed USPTO examiner who rejected all 75 of the e-tailer's new claims, repeatedly invoking terms like 'obvious' and 'old and well known' to dismiss the purported inventions. Amazon has taken the unusual step of requesting an Oral Appeal to plead its case and also canceled and refiled its 1-Click claims in a continuation application, not unlike a popular stalling tactic employed by skilled lawyers. As it touted the novelty of 1-Click to Congress (PDF) last fall, Amazon didn't mention the examiner's rejection as it insisted that 'still no [1-Click] prior art has surfaced' to a Committee whose members included Rick Boucher (VA) and Howard Berman (CA), recipients of campaign contributions from a PAC funded by Amazon execs and their families."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Why Digital Rights are Human Rights

Cyrus Mack writes: "I've written a paper on why access to information should be recognized explicitly as a basic human right. Laws should protect citizens from oppressive governments that wish to restrict these rights. If we don't do this, we risk scores of disenfranchised people with no means to fully participate in our digital society. This puts them at a severe disadvantage. Legislation such as California's AB 1668 must be supported and rights protected."
Java

Submission + - Open source java framework to develop RIAs

Mauro Carniel writes: "The rise of Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) has lately become an important topic in the Java community. In addition to new technologies like AJAX and MacroMedia Flex and MS SilverLight, the combination of Swing and Java Web Start has also been proposed as a RIA technology.

Much people criticize Swing because of the lack of data binding and POJO (plain old Java objects) support. Recently some efforts have been done to create a data binding layer that simplify data setting onto the graphical components (see JDNC project). Also a reference framework is needed to develop Swing applications, expecially for beginner Swing programmers. Recently some efforts have been done to design an Advanced Swing Framework (JSR 296). However this may represent a future step, not a current available solution. Moreover these attempts do not still provide a complete solution (a framework and advanced swing components with data binding capabilities) to quickly and easly develop rich-client applications; in addition, Swing components are just hard to use: creating a powerful table or a tree component usually requires a lot of code and time and skills.

OpenSwing is an open-source Swing framework that provides an MVC architecture and automates communication between models, views, and controllers by means of Java Beans, directly connected to view components. It also provides a suite of advanced graphics components based on Swing components with data binding between components and data model.

It is possibile to apply this framework to develop java stand-alone applications, without an underlying database, or to develop more classic two layered client-server applications (front-end + database) or to develop three tiered web applications (i.e. Swing front-end + HTTP + java servlet + database), or to develop distributed rich-client applications (Swing front-end + server side applications remotely accessed via RMI or another protocol + database).

OpenSwing provides some utility classes that simplify Hibernate integration with OpenSwing, iBatis integration with OpenSwing and comunication between OpenSwing and Spring Framework, so that you can develop UI layer using OpenSwing and develop server-side layer using Spring and/or Hibernate or iBatis.

You can see it at: OpenSwing Home Page"

Microsoft Invents Split Screen PC 348

An anonymous reader writes "New technology from Microsoft Research India in Bangalore could end the waiting game in offices with limited computers. Researchers are developing software that splits a computer screen in two halves, each side with its own operating system, desktop, applications, cursor and keyboard." Mom! Timmy is on my side of the screen again!

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