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Government

Submission + - A Law to Spy Back on Govt. Surveillance Cameras (popularmechanics.com)

Submitted by mattnyc99
mattnyc99 writes: As the Senate begins debate today on wider new surveillance legislation, Instapundit blogger and University of Tennesee law professor Glenn Reynolds has an interesting op-ed as part of Popular Mechanics' cover story on the looming power of spy cameras in America. He cites numerous court cases to argue that our privacy concerns may be backwards, and that there should be a new law for citizen rights — that if Big Brother can keep an eye on us in public spaces, we ought to be able to look back. From the accompanying podcast: "Realistically I don't think we're going to get much in the way of limits on government and business surveillance. So I think we should be focusing more on making it safe, on making it a double-edged sword. And I'd actually like to see a law..."
Graphics

Submission + - NVIDIA launches 7xx series chipsets (it-review.net)

Submitted by
vEddY
vEddY writes: "Major benefits of 780i chipset over 680i include: — ESA support — PCI Express v2.0 support — 3x16 PCI Express support, although one of those ports are PCI Express v1 — Penryn support Are those good enough for you to buy them? Only you can answer that question. The fact is that 680i chipsets are still the highest performers on the market so — considering that fact — yeah, 780i is worth the money, as is 750i, the budget-level gaming platform. DDR2 is still much more feasible and OCable then DDR3 so it's a win there, as well. ESA is a HUGE benefit from where we stand, and finally you'll be able to take complete control over your PC from the OS itself. And with Penryn support — highest-performing CPU's on the market — it's a winner. But we're only wondering for how long..."
Quickies

Submission + - Dell's First All-In-One PC, XPS One Now on Sale (techluver.com)

Submitted by
Tech.Luver
Tech.Luver writes: "Shortly after Michael Dells keynote address at Oracle OpenWorld on Nov 14, Dell has finally start selling brand new addition to its desktop lineup, 20-inch Widescreen Display All-In-One PC XPS One. Dell is offering XPS One in four flavors, configurable with Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 processor, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, Bluetooth 2.0, 8-in-1 multicard reader, 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, 256MB ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO Graphics Card, and a 500GB 7,200 RPM SATA hard drive. Additionally, you can add on a built-in Blu-ray DVD-Burner and a hybrid Analog / Digital TV tuner, starting from $1499, all the way up to $2399. More at Dell. ( http://techluver.com/2007/11/16/dell-xps-one-now-on-sale/ )"
Security

Submission + - Apple's monster meal of updates (itwire.com) 1

Submitted by
WirePosted
WirePosted writes: "Security updates for Mac OS X 10.3.9 client and server provide fixes for AppleRAID, bind, CoreFoundation, Flash Player Plug-in, and Foundation. They also incorporate Security Update 2007-007."
Space

Submission + - People Believe NASA Funded As Well As Defense (thespacereview.com)

Submitted by
QuantumG
QuantumG writes: "An essay on the Space Review is reporting that in a just-completed study, on average, respondents estimated NASA's allocation of the national budget to be approximately 24% (it's actually closer to 0.58%) and the Department of Defense budget to be approximately 33% (it's actually closer to 21%). In other words, respondents believed NASA's budget approaches that of the Department of Defense, which receives almost 38 times more money. Once informed of the actual allocations, they were almost uniformly surprised. One of the more vocal participants exclaimed, "No wonder we haven't gone anywhere!""
Displays

Submission + - Imaging (rice.edu)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The single-pixel camera uses a Digital Micromirror device to randomly reflect light onto a ONE-pixel sensor element, then reconstruct the image with a DSP. They also claim that since they compress the data "on-the-fly" and decompress it when they reassemble the image, they need much less bandwidth. Probably will be most useful at first in non-visual areas (like infrared) where the sensors are difficult or expensive to build as arrays. They also seem to think they can make extremely small cameras with a single sensor, but they seem to be forgetting the micromirror device in there! Also, at least at this early stage, the so-called "high resolution" image still looks pretty coarse!
Businesses

Submission + - Dutch copyright trolls attack blogger

Submitted by
bbc
bbc writes: "You've heard of patent trolls, companies that solely exist to exploit patent portfolios? A new type of "troll" has emerged: Cozzmoss is a Dutch company that buys up copyrights to works in order to claim hundreds of euros in "damages" from those that duplicate these works without permission. In the past weeks two non-commercial entities, a blogger and a foundation, have come out with their stories. The latter party had actually gained permission from the newspaper whose works they were redistributing, but in the case of the infringing article the paper had omitted to warn them that they did not hold the copyright. These cases are remarkable because in both instances the alleged infringers clearly lacked the financial ability to go to court, and the "damages" were small enough that settling would prove cheaper. This sort of trolling could be a gold mine for the unscrupulous, because it exploits the gap between what's legal and what's decent. Decent would have been to ask to take down the article first, because as the second example indicates, the infringer could have acted in good faith."
Security

Submission + - All-in-1 firewalls show spotty performance (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
BobB
BobB writes: "Comprehensive test finds that good enterprise firewalls are plentiful from the likes of Cisco, Juniper and Check Point, but adding in unified threat management features like intrusion prevention and anti-virus scanning will yield very spotty performance."
Censorship

Submission + - Will newspapers end up paying to report the news?

Submitted by Jyms
Jyms writes: Racing, rugby and now cricket all seem to want to "protect" their "product", but when does their right to protect their product interfere with your right to access news?

"The broader picture is even more scandalous. In heedlessly, greedily following the lead of the Rugby World Cup organisers over the use of photographs on the web, and the flat racing authorities in Britain before them, Cricket Australia have chosen to ignore an inescapable verity. To wit, the written media provide the best free advertising in town. When newspapers here were asked to stump up a fee to print racing cards a few years ago, a one-day blanket blackout by the editors was all it took to force a rapid rethink and red-faced retraction.

Can you imagine a world in which Warner and his multitudinous Brothers charged correspondents for the privilege of sitting in dingy screening rooms and reviewing their movies? Or where Sony imposed a fee on those charged with reviewing their CDs? Or where correspondents were obliged to stump up money to cover a General Election? Easier to picture a racoon winning the Tour de France without the aid of a copious helping of drugs, right?"

"The world's top three global news agencies — Agence France-Presse , Reuters and Associated Press — have suspended all coverage of the season unless a deal can be agreed. The stand-off also involves Getty Images, who provide photos to newspapers and websites across the world."
Announcements

Submission + - Demonoid shut down by the CRIA...for good.

Submitted by
AnarchyAo
AnarchyAo writes: "As early as this morning, upon loading http://www.demonoid.com/ you're presented with the following:

"The CRIA threatened the company renting the servers to us, and because of this it is not possible to keep the site online. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for your understanding."

If there were any doubts of Demonoid and there problems with the CRIA, now it's impossible to see the kind of pressures they've been under since there site was last taken offline by the CRIA this past September 26th (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/26/132204)"
The Internet

Submission + - Piracy isn't THAT bad and they know it (rlslog.net)

Submitted by
xxuaoxx
xxuaoxx writes: "The guys over at Releaselog [rlslog.net] have gotten quite a story. It seems a while back, they posted a torrent link and review of an indie movie "Jerome Bixby's The Man From Earth". Shortly after that, the movie began to skyrocket. Their IMDB rating went through the roof. Curious as why, the producer sought out an answer. He found Releaselog. He then went on to write a letter to the staff at Releaselog, thanking them for what is turning out to be a blessing in disguise.

Full Article can be read here"
Security

Submission + - SPAM: Top 5 security-menace predictions for 2008

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: If this year will be remembered for high-profile data breaches, with the TJX break-in topping a long list, then what troubles are in store for 2008? Predictions include more powerful hacker botnets that elude shutdown and growth in numbers of compromised Web sites that attack trusting, unsuspecting visitors. Those are some of the picks from Symantec's director of emerging technologies, Oliver Friedrichs.
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