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Android

Sony Ericsson to allow xperia bootloader unlcock->

Submitted by teh31337one
teh31337one writes "While Motorola and even HTC are busy locking down their phones, it's refreshing to see that Sony Erricsson will allow their upcoming xperia devices to be unlocked. There are a few conditions. like your phone not being SIM-locked to a carrier, and the bootloader can be unlocked by connect your device to the Fastboot tool in the Android SDK.

Suddenly the Xperia Play looks a lot more appealing."
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Government

RIAA lobbyist becomes federal judge, rules on file-> 1

Submitted by suraj.sun
suraj.sun writes "RIAA lobbyist becomes federal judge, rules on file-sharing cases:

Last week, Washington, DC federal judge Beryl Howell ruled on three mass file-sharing lawsuits. Judges in Texas, West Virginia, and Illinois had all ruled recently that such lawsuits were defective in various ways, but Howell gave her cases the green light; attorneys could use the federal courts to sue thousands of people at once and then issue mass subpoenas to Internet providers.

Beryl Howell isn't the only judge to believe this, but her important ruling is especially interesting because of Howell's previous work: lobbying for the recording industry during the time period when the RIAA was engaged in its own campaign of mass lawsuits against individuals. The news, first reported in a piece at TorrentFreak, nicely illustrates the revolving door between government and industry.

ARS Technica: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/03/riaa-lobbyist-becomes-federal-judge-rules-on-file-sharing-cases.ars"
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Games

Ryzom releases native Linux client-> 1

Submitted by biking42
biking42 writes "The MMORPG Ryzom, in addition to Open Sourcing the core server code last spring, has released a native Linux client. No more messing with Wine and settling with no sound or 3fps. You can also download the client source and compile it yourself. A dev Wiki and Forums can be found at: http://dev.ryzom.com/ for both the client AND core server source code.

In addition, for new game accounts they just went F2P. No store or micropayment items yet — just some restrictions on the free accounts. Read about it at the main site: http://www.ryzom.com/"
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Programming

ISO C++ Committee Approves C++0x Final Draft ->

Submitted by Randyll
Randyll writes "On the 25th, in Madrid, Spain, the ISO C++ committee approved a Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) for the C++ programming language. This means that the proposed changes to the new standard so far known as C++0x are now final. The finalization of the standard itself, i.e. updating the working draft and transmitting the final draft to ITTF, is due to be completed during the summer, after which the standard is going to be published, to be known as C++ 2011. With the previous ISO C++ standard dating back to 2003 and C++0x having been for over eight years in development, the implementation of the standard is already well underway in the GCC and Visual C++ compilers. Bjarne Stroustrup, the creator of C++, maintains a handy FAQ of the new standard."
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Books

Crime Writer Makes a Killing with 99 Cent eBooks

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Joe Konrath has an interesting interview with independent writer John Locke who currently holds the coveted #1 spot in the Amazon Top 100 and has sold just over 350,000 downloads on Kindle of his 99 cent books since January 1st of this year which with a royalty rate of 35%, is an annual income well over $500k. Locke says that 99 cents is the magic number and adds that when he lowered the price of his book "The List" from $2.99 to 99 cents, he started selling 20 times as many copies — about 800 a day, turning his loss lead into his biggest earner. "These days the buying public looks at a $9.95 eBook and pauses. It’s not an automatic sale," says Locke. "And the reason it’s not is because the buyer knows when an eBook is priced ten times higher than it has to be. And so the buyer pauses. And it is in this pause—this golden, sweet-scented pause—that we independent authors gain the advantage, because we offer incredible value." Kevin Kelly predicts that within 5 years all digital books will cost 99 cents. "I don't think publishers are ready for how low book prices will go," writes Kelly. "It seems insane, dangerous, life threatening, but inevitable.""
Microsoft

Windows users at risk of video file attacks ->

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes "Microsoft warned users that a newly discovered Windows Media flaw could let hackers take over their PCs by tricking users into opening specially crafted video files. The video file vulnerability was rated critical in Microsoft's latest Patch Tuesday security announcement, and is "somewhat trivial for attackers to exploit," according to Symantec. The flaw "allows attackers to skip a few of the traditional steps needed to get malicious code to execute on a targeted computer." Microsoft has had to change the way library files and Windows media files are opened in order to prevent future attacks."
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EU

BSA worried about proposed EU consumer law->

Submitted by crimperman
crimperman writes "The Business Software Alliance is worried about proposals for a new EU consumer rights law. The new law (to be voted on in a couple of weeks) would bring software and digitial content into line with other goods. That is that the consumer would own what they "buy". The BSA is clearly worried about its members revenue and raises a number of arguments against this law including the fact that software companies "could stop offering patches and updates because they are only liable for faults at the time of purchase.""
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Android

Mobile Operator Sprint embeds rootkit in Android-> 1

Submitted by pucko
pucko writes "User "k0nane" at the forum of xda-developers.com have discovered an interesting piece of software in Android based Samsung mobiles sold by Sprint.
Apparently Sprint have embedded a secret application called Carrier IQ which have full control over the phone and everything the user does with it.
It even monitors input, which essentially means; Sprint have full access to your passwords, your banking accounts and your corporate secrets.
Encryption and SSL is a worthless defence, Sprint and Carrier IQ sees your information BEFORE it is protected.

The question is now, how many other carriers uses this rootkit? Does it exist on iPhone? Blackberry?"
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The Courts

LimeWire Has Proof Studios Profit From File Sharin->

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes "As most of our readers will know, LimeWire was once one of the most used file sharing clients in the world. A few months ago it was forced to cease its operations following an ongoing battle with the entertainment industry. In regard to damages being imposed on LimeWire they have stated that discovery has shown that the entertainment industry has made a profit from file sharing.

Several studios were granted damages for secondary copyright infringement by a federal court in May last year and discovery was ordered by Judge Debra freeman to determine the amount of damages. In February this year, Judge kimba Wood called for the studies to produce further documents to LimeWire which may result in greater support for their assertion.

LimeWire made the request for further information as they claimed Freemans order "indicated (1) that Plaintiffs were attempting to 'blacklist' LimeWire; (2) that certain employees of Plaintiffs had exoressed a desire to work with LimeWire; and (3) that Plaintiffs believed user downloads through LimeWire had actually increased Plaintiffs' revenue"

The order was expanded but the studios stated that to do so would breach attorney-client priviledge. Wood then limited discovery to documents not covered by this priviledge. She then stated it was "reasonable and appropriate" for studios to "minimize the exposure to copyright infringment". Wood also reversed an order by Freeman no longer forcing non parties MySpace, Yahoo! and iMesh to provide discovery.

The trial to determine the final damages will be held on May 2nd 2011.

If your still struggling to find a replacement for LimeWire why not check out our Top LimeWire Alternatives. Otherwise, there's always LimeWire Pirate Edition"
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Facebook

Facebook Bans AdSense in Apps->

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes "Three days ago Facebook finalized their list of accepted ad networks for use within Facebook Apps; AdSense being an (unsurprising?) omission from the list, stating that any missing ad network had yet to agree to the Facebook TOS.

Facebook developers were quick to point out the only losers in this cold-war between Facebook and Google are the developers themselves. Other devs go on to clarify that the reputations of some of the accepted networks is shady at best, leaving developers with sub-par options to monetize their work on the Facebook platform."
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Nokia announces MeeGo 1.2 for Developers w/ N900->

Submitted by operator_error
operator_error writes "Jukka Eklund at Nokia writes to the Meego Dev list: "I am thrilled to announce a little thing we started at Nokia. Basically we want to have MeeGo running in N900 device, so that it's really usable as your daily development device. Basic Handset UX should work, phone calls, SMS, web browsing. So we are concentrating on a few selected features and polish those to be "perfect". It might mean that we leave out some things in MeeGo 1.2 trunk for this edition, but that is not the default intention.

We are doing this fully on the open, and I hope this is an interesting project where we all in the community work towards the same goal: have a great MeeGo edition in the N900. This work is naturally based on the great work done already by N900 adaptation team lead by Harri and Carsten.

The wiki is up here: http://wiki.meego.com/ARM/N900/DeveloperEdition. It will populated with more information as we go, thanks for the patience.

Br,
Jukka
Developer Edition product manager" ...Also folks, be sure to stay tuned for the new Nokia N950 meant only as a (likely) unsubsidized Developer's hardware refresh of the N900. Only rumor has it that it will not arrive with a slide-out keyboard. How important is having a N900-style keyboard to you, along with the new Meego Love Nokia software continues to offer?"
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Media

Posting AC - a thing of the past?-> 1

Submitted by c0lo
c0lo writes "A Marion County judge has ruled, for the first time in Indiana, that news media outlets can be ordered by the court to reveal identifying information about posters to their online forums.
If you think that this will affect only posting on /. or the like, think again: according to TFA, under threat seems to be no less than the right of the media outlets to protect the identity of their sources."
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It's the same old story; boy meets beer, boy drinks beer... boy gets another beer. -- Cheers