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Petition Requests Formal ACTA Ratification In Sena->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Techdirt reports that a petition on the US Government's We the People website raises the question of whether ACTA is enforcable as an executive agreement — which allows the President to sign the agreement without getting approval — when it covers intellectual property, which is the mandate of Congress, and would require a vote before it becomes a treaty.

Slashdot has previously covered Senator Wyden questioning the constitutionality of ACTA before signing; while the EU will be imminently signing ACTA into force."
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Was mega upload crushed to stop mega box?->

Submitted by
MrShaggy
MrShaggy writes "Our friends at dsl-reports that 'The kicker was Megabox would cater to unsigned artists and allow anyone to sell their creations while allowing the artist to retain 90% of the earnings. Or, artists could even giveaway their songs and would be paid through a service called Megakey. “Yes that’s right, we will pay artists even for free downloads. The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works,” Kim Dotcom told TorrentFreak in December. Megabox was planning on bypassing the labels, RIAA, and the entire music establishment.'"
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AMD

The state of stereoscopic 3D gaming on the PC->

Submitted by crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes "While 3D TVs have largely been a bust, AMD and Nvidia continue to push stereoscopic 3D implementations on the PC. This article takes a closer look at how HD3D and 3D Vision 2 compare and whether either improves one's gaming experience. The verdict is mixed overall, with eye fatigue and spotty game compatibility tarnishing stereo 3D's appeal somewhat. The fact that you'll need a high-end graphics card to ensure smooth gameplay (enabling stereo 3D essentially doubles the number of frames that must be rendered) doesn't help. However, newer games like Battlefield 3 and Batman: Arkham City really come alive when viewed in stereo 3D. With Microsoft standardizing a stereo API in the next version of DirectX, true 3D gaming could have a bright future on the PC."
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Linux

The HUD As The New Desktop Manager-> 1

Submitted by esocid
esocid writes "Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the Ubuntu Project, is proposing the next direction for desktop managers, focusing on interaction and intent.

Even casual users find typing faster than mousing. So while there are modes of interaction where it’s nice to sit back and drive around with the mouse, we observe people staying more engaged and more focused on their task when they can keep their hands on the keyboard all the time. Hotkeys are a sort of mental gymnastics, the HUD is a continuation of mental flow.

It’s smart, because it can do things like fuzzy matching, and it can learn what you usually do so it can prioritise the things you use often. It covers the focused app (because that’s where you probably want to act) as well as system functionality; you can change IM state, or go offline in Skype, all through the HUD, without changing focus, because those apps all talk to the indicator system. When you’ve been using it for a little while it seems like it’s reading your mind, in a good way.

"
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KDE

KDE 4.8 Released->

Submitted by
jrepin
jrepin writes " KDE community have released version 4.8 of their free and open source software bundle. The new version provides many new features, improved stability and increased performance.

Highlights for Plasma Workspaces include window manager optimizations, the redesign of power management, and integration with Activities. The first Qt Quick-based Plasma widgets have entered the default installation of Plasma Desktop, with more to follow in future releases.

KDE applications released today include Dolphin file manager with its new display engine, new Kate text editor features and improvements, Gwenview image viewer with functional and visual improvements. KDE Telepathy reaches first beta milestone. New features for Marble virtual globe keep arriving, among these are: Elevation Profile, satellite tracking and Krunner integration.

KDE Platform provides the foundation for KDE software. KDE software is more stable than ever before. In addition to stability improvements and bugfixes, Platform 4.8 provides better tools for building fluid and touch-friendly user interfaces, integrates with other systems' password saving mechanisms and lays the base for more powerful interaction with other people using the new KDE Telepathy framework."
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"And they told us, what they wanted... Was a sound that could kill some-one, from a distance." -- Kate Bush