gloom - Slashdot User

Submission + - Opera demonstrates OLPC at The Gathering

Submitted by

gloom

on Friday April 06, 2007 @05:24AM

gloom writes: "The CTO of Opera Software, Håkon Wium Lie, demonstrated the "one laptop per child" (also known as OLPC) at the computer-party The Gathering, taking place this week in Norway. Read more here (pictures included).

"The laptop itself uses an 366 MHz AMD x86 processor and it 128 MB RAM (though, some models have 256) and a 512 flash memory. It does not have any hard drives — actually, there are very few moving parts on it at all, but more about that later. Red hat is making the Linux-based operating system for it, but in theory you should be able to install any distro that you want on it. It is also equipped with wifi and USB ports so that children can use electronic school books. It is also able to surf the web and do e-mails. The laptop is also equipped with a web-cam, and after Håkon demonstrated it to us, it turned out to be of decent quality as well.""

Submission + - The Pirate Bay launches 'Oscartorrents'

Submitted by gloom on Tuesday February 13, 2007 @05:50AM

gloom writes: After turning legal threats into entertainment and trying to create a new pirate state, what do you do next? You go for the gold of course. The Pirate Bay has launched oscartorrents.com — an easy-to-use torrent-site for finding good versions of this years Oscar nominees.

In their own words: "You haven't beaten us, so why not join us? Think of a new business model that doesn't involve overpriced pieces of plastic and skanky cinemas hawking cheap carbohydrates while relying on $6/hr projectionists who can't keep a film in focus — not to mention insulting your audiences by (to pick a few examples) surveilling us with nightvision glasses, searching bags, 30 minutes of commercials and bombarding us with ridiculous anti-piracy propaganda. Take a look at yourselves. Is it really any wonder we're winning?"

No lack of cohones in Sweden, that's for sure.

Submission + - Major record producer blatantly ignores copyright

Submitted by gloom on Saturday February 10, 2007 @08:45AM

gloom writes: In a follow-up to one of the more exciting David VS Goliath-stories so far this year, american super-producer Timbaland now speaks out on a radio-show ("Elliot In The Morning") and to MTV regarding the allegations that he stole a song from finnish demoscene musician Janne Suni. It would be sort of funny if it wasn't so serious — I quote:

""It makes me laugh. The part I don't understand, the dude is trying to act like I went to his house and took it from his computer. I don't know him from a can of paint. I'm 15 years deep. That's how you attack a king? You attack moi? Come on, man. You got to come correct. You the laughing stock. People are like, 'You can't be serious.'"

Is this new version of the Chewbacca-defence going to hold up? Is it okay to steal music and pass it off as your own as long as you are already famous?

Submission + - Famous music-producer steals from demoscene musici

Submitted by

gloom

on Saturday January 13, 2007 @10:16AM

gloom writes: "In 2000 the finnish demoscene musician Janne Suni (also known as Tempest) won the Oldskool Music Competition at the Assembly demoparty with his four channel Amiga .MOD entitled "Acid Jazzed Evening". A Commodore 64 musician called 'grg' remade the song on the C64 (using the infamous SID soundchip) which is what was stolen. The producers name is Timbaland, one of the hottest names in american music these days, and the track in question is called 'Do it' and is featured on the Nelly Furtado-album 'Loose'.

Getting nowhere with Geffen, the demoscene has now risen to he aid of Tempest, first by creating a stirr at SomethingAwful (files downloadable from the forum), and later at the news-site Digg.com as well as on YouTube, with a video demonstrating the blatant rippoff.

Being an online-posting musician myself — what rights do I have if this should ever happen to me, and what can be done to raise awareness about such things?"

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