BRTB - Slashdot User

RIAA sues man for downloading five songs

Submitted by Ten24 on Tuesday February 06 2007, @04:53PM

Ten24 writes ""An Augusta, Maine man is in hot water with the music industry after downloading five songs. 23-year-old Scott Hinds has been sued by the Recording Industry of America for illegally downloading the songs through peer to peer networks and now faces a $750 civil penalty for each song...."

Could these guys get any more disgusting? Can the artists stop supporting these guys sometime soon, maybe take a moral stance?

http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/02/06/riaa_sues_august a_5_songs/"

Playing Video Games Improves Vision

Submitted by

cmill-bigft14CM

on Tuesday February 06 2007, @04:13PM

cmill-bigft14CM writes "Researchers at the University of Rochester made subjects play games like Unreal Tournament for a few hours a day over the course of a month. Then something incredible happened: Subjects "improved by about 20 percent in their ability to identify letters presented in clutter — a visual acuity test similar to ones used in regular ophthalmology clinics." Or to put it another way, playing Halo could improve your performance on a standard eye chart. Interestingly, the effect only showed up in games like Unreal Tournament — not in games like Tetris."

Steve Jobs: Apple would embrace DRM-free music

Submitted by

jfruhlinger

on Tuesday February 06 2007, @03:46PM

jfruhlinger writes "Steve Jobs has posted a letter on Apple's Web site that seems to be a response to European government pressures to open the iPod to other music stores. It's pretty long, but it can be boiled down to this: Apple doesn't want to license its FairPlay DRM because it's afraid that its trade secrets would leak out with so many eyes on it; Apple only uses DRM in the first place because otherwise the big four record labels wouldn't sell their music through iTunes; if those labels would allow DRM-free music, Apple would be more than happy to wash its hand of DRM entirely. Is this a real attempt to pressure the labels, or a bit of jujitsu to deflect government scrutiny away from Apple and towards the labels?"

5 Things You Need to Know About SLR Lenses

Submitted by

Kurtis

on Tuesday February 06 2007, @03:05PM

Kurtis writes "If you're a relative newcomer to the world of photography and you've got a hankerin' for a new lens or two but don't know where to even begin looking, you're in luck! From the author of "10 Reasons to Buy a DSLR," (that's me) comes "5 Things You Need to Know About SLR Lenses." Get your read on."