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+ - Ex-Marine detained under Operationn Vigilant Eagle for his political views sues->

Submitted by stry_cat
stry_cat writes "You may remember the story of Brandon Raub, who was detained withtout due process over some facebook posts he made. Now with the help of the Rutherford Institute, he is suing his captors.

According to his complaint [PDF], his detention was part of a federal government program code-named “Operation Vigilant Eagle,” which monitors military veterans with certain political views."
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+ - Spielberg to make Halo TV series->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "“Steven Spielberg will produce a TV series based on the Halo franchise, which will include extra content and interactivity exclusive to the Xbox One. Few details were discussed, nevertheless it was one of the big things Microsoft had to showcase at the conference. It is expected, though, to focus on Halo's main character Master Chief. The Halo series has become well-known for its live-action cinematic trailers as well as the online mini-series Forward Unto Dawn, which was released in the run-up to Halo 4. Fans are speculating how the newly-announced TV series might tie in with the next series of Halo 4's "Spartan Ops" content, currently in development by Microsoft's 343 Industries.”"
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+ - End of the line for Linux in Norway's educational system?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Recently, in the organization "UNINETT", in an executive meeting from the 13. May 2013, a decision was taken under the title "UNINETT felles IKT-verktøykasse". For explanation: UNINETT is some government-sponsored institute for providing IT support for higher education in Norway (universities and university colleges (called høyskole in Norwegian)). The title of the project means: ``common ICT-toolbox". It's the attempt to "harmonize" (their words) IT systems throughout education Norway.
The core basically is an ``office solution'' for everyone (with perspective to cloud outsourcing), based on Microsoft office software, Microsoft exchange etc. This will be forced throughout all universities and colleges. The announcement also states (I quote): En eventuell brukerstøtte for
Linux-plattform er ikke en del av dette prosjektet... which translates: a potential support of the Linux-platform is _NOT_ part of this project... (emphasis by me).

This seems currently not public information, it's decided a few days week ago (behind closed doors, it seems)."

+ - Australian bank becomes one of the first companies to deploy IBM's Watson->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Australia and New Zealand Banking Group has revealed it will be one of the first companies globally to trial using IBM’s Watson expert data retrieval platform to attempt to enhance the quality of data available to the bank’s customer service team, in a move that could eventually lead to Watson taking questions from customers themselves."
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+ - Australian Police Move To Make 3D Printed Guns Illegal->

Submitted by lukehopewell1
lukehopewell1 writes ""Untraceable, undetectable, cheap and freely available". That's how Australian police have described the 3D-printable gun known as The Liberator today as they announce that they will be seeking to make the download, construction and possession of these weapons illegal. In their tests, Police printed the 15 parts required to assemble The Liberator in 27 hours and assembled it within 60 seconds with a firing pin fashioned out of a steel nail. The two guns were test fired into a block of resin designed to simulate human muscle, and the first bullet penetrated the resin block up to 17 centimetres. NSW Police Ballistics division confirm that it would be a fatal wound if pointed at someone.

Welcome to the new Wild West."
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+ - Hollywood Studios Issue DMCA To Censor Pirate Bay Documentary

Submitted by Aaron B Lingwood
Aaron B Lingwood writes "As reported by TorrentFreak, Viacom, Paramount, Fox and Lionsgate have all asked Google to take down links pointing to the Pirate Bay documentary 'TPB-AFK'. The film, created by Simon Klose, is available for no cost and has already been watched by millions of people. The public response to this free release model has been overwhelmingly positive, but it’s now meeting resistance from Hollywood, TPB’s arch rival.

Pirate Party Australia opines 'Hollywood is using takedown notices to censor Pirate Bay doco, is it incompetence or malice? Always hard to tell'. Whichever the answer, the system is definately broken."

+ - Inside the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes "The Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit has been spearheading botnet takedowns and other anti-cybercrime operations for many years, and it has had remarkable success. But the cybercrime problem isn’t going away anytime soon, so the DCU is in the process of building a new cybercrime center here, and soon will roll out a new threat intelligence service to help ISPs and CERT teams get better data about ongoing attacks. Dennis Fisher sat down with TJ Campana, director of security at the DCU, to discuss the unit’s work and what threats could be next on the target list.

"We’re trying very hard to find the person who owns the servers we want to seize. When we go into a data center, that person isn’t there to defend himself, so we are working very hard to notify them that we took the servers. We want to find the person. We have to satisfy the judge that we did everything we could. We see a huge advantage in handing off a very nice package to law enforcement," Campana said."

+ - Users: Flickr changes flick'd up the site

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Following yesterday's announcement by pudgy blond Marissa Mayer that the populat photograph hosting site Flickr was being revamped so that pubescent teens could post all their low-quality telephonic pictures of their underaged friends for free, at the expense of the serious photographers who paid to use the site and whose pictures now look like a Tumblr nightmare, existing users are pissed off. And with good reason. Geocities, anyone?"

+ - Australia Makes Asian Language Learning a Priority->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "The Australian government came a step closer to formalising its plans to make Asian language study compulsory for schools this week. It has released a draft curriculum for public consultation which reveals plans to include Indonesian, Korean and french language in the curriculum.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard publicly stated in September 2012 that in response to the “staggering growth” in the region, the government would be instigating 25 key measures to strengthen and exploit links with Asia. The plan includes the requirement that one third of civil servants and company directors have a “deep knowledge,” thousands of scholarships for Asian students, and the opportunity for every schoolchild to learn one of four “priority” languages- Chinese, Hindi, Japanese or Indonesian"
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+ - Justice Department got more than phone records in journalist probe->

Submitted by PolygamousRanchKid
PolygamousRanchKid writes "When the Justice Department began investigating possible leaks of classified information about North Korea in 2009, investigators did more than obtain telephone records of a working journalist suspected of receiving the secret material.

They used security-badge access records to track the reporter’s comings and goings from the State Department, according to a newly obtained court affidavit. They traced the timing of his calls with a State Department security adviser suspected of sharing the classified report. They obtained a search warrant for the reporter’s personal emails.

The case of Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, the government adviser, and James Rosen, the chief Washington correspondent for Fox News, bears striking similarities to a sweeping leaks investigation disclosed last week in which federal investigators obtained records over two months of more than 20 telephone lines assigned to The Associated Press. AP executives and First Amendment watchdogs have criticized the Justice Department in part for the broad scope of the phone records it secretly subpoenaed. “The latest events show an expansion of this law-enforcement technique,” said attorney Abbe Lowell, who is defending Kim on federal charges filed in 2010 that he disclosed national-defense information.

Investigators also scrutinized computer records and found that someone who had logged in with Kim’s user profile viewed the classified report “at or around” the same time two calls were placed from his desk phone to Rosen, according to the documents."
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+ - How chilly weather weakens our defenses against colds->

Submitted by ananyo
ananyo writes "It's been a contentious proposition but scientists now have evidence that not wrapping up warm does indeed make it more likely you'll catch a cold. A team from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, found that cold temperatures dampen natural defenses against a rhinovirus, the leading cause of seasonal colds, in mice and in human airway cells.
Colds are more common in winter, and researchers have known for decades that many rhinoviruses prefer colder temperatures: they replicate better in the upper respiratory tract than they do in in the warmer environment of the lungs. But efforts to link the viruses’ apparent temperature preference and seasonal fluctuations in incidence have produced mixed results.
The researchers discovered that at cooler temperatures mice infected with the rhinovirus produced fewer antiviral immune signals. They also found that human airway cells grown in cold conditions were less likely to undergo programmed cell death — a defense mechanism aimed at limiting the spread of infections."
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+ - Tornado Strikes Oklahoma City / 91 dead -> Screenshot-sm

Submitted by NewsTube
NewsTube writes "A giant tornado, a mile wide or more, killed at least 91 people, 20 of them children, as it tore across parts of Oklahoma City and its suburbs Monday afternoon, flattening homes, flinging cars through the air and crushing at least two schools."
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+ - EU to criminalize nearly all seeds and plants->

Submitted by NSN A392-99-964-5927
NSN A392-99-964-5927 writes "A new law proposed by the European Commission would make it illegal to “grow, reproduce or trade” any vegetable seeds that have not been “tested, approved and accepted” by a new EU bureaucracy named the “EU Plant Variety Agency.”

It’s called the Plant Reproductive Material Law, and it attempts to put the government in charge of virtually all plants and seeds. Home gardeners who grow their own plants from non-regulated seeds would be considered criminals under this law.

As you might suspect, this move is the “final solution” of Monsanto, DuPont and other seed-domination corporations who have long admitted their goal is the complete domination of all seeds and crops grown on the planet."
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