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Online Book Purchase Records Kept Private

Submitted by Radon360
Radon360 writes "Online retailer Amazon recently requested to have a ruling made by U.S. Magistrate unsealed. The ruling concerned involved the denial of a grand jury supoena requesting that Amazon turn over customer records that were related to a particular seller being investigated. Amazon stood their ground and the federal court agreed at an all-out disclosure was not necessary and would create a "chilling effect on expressive e-commerce (that) would frost keyboards across America". Although Amazon did not hand over customer information, some of it was obtained from the defendant's computer while other contacts were made with buyers through blind letters sent on behalf of the prosecutors by Amazon, asking them to contact the prosecution."
The Internet

Hunting via the Internet idea DOA

Submitted by Radon360
Radon360 writes "The fairly recent concept of hunting animals via the internet has been met with swift legislation to prevent the idea from becoming a reality in many states. According to this Wall Street Journal article 33 states have already enacted bans and a federal ban is in the works. One of the cited reasons for the expediency is that there is no real opposition to enacting such a prohibition. Most notably, the NRA also supports these bans, though for different reasons than animal rights groups. While sportsman groups have generally come out in favor of such legislation, they are keeping a watchful eye out for the potential of broadly written laws that might impact conventional hunting methods. Just in case you might have been thinking about starting up a site to allow others to go sport-fishing over the internet, California has already banned this practice as well."
The Almighty Buck

Trading Methane for CO2 on the Carbon Market

Submitted by Radon360
Radon360 writes "With U.S. government regulations on carbon dioxide emissions looming, the largest producers of carbon dioxide emissions are looking to get the biggest bang for their buck when it comes to purchasing carbon credits. American Electric Power, one of the largest emitters of carbon dioxide in the U.S. is looking to capture and burn off methane from farm manure lagoons as a means of purchasing cheap carbon credits from farmers. Initial plans call for simply burning off methane gas (without any power extraction). Methane gas is roughly 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, and the idea is that by burning it will mitigate its impact on global warming."
The Internet

Companies that Clean Up Bad Online Reputations

Submitted by Radon360
Radon360 writes "As the ever-increasing amount of information available online becomes indexed and searchable, more and more people find themselves potentially at risk of having unwanted personal information revealed or their names incorrectly associated with inflammatory topics. The are several firms that now sell their services of trying to remove or bury such information that their client deems offensive or troublesome. Companies, such as ReputationDefender and DefendMyName will, for a fee, do the legwork to find content that negatively impacts your reputation and have it removed or buried deeper in search rankings. However, some of these efforts can backfire, as the act to get it taken down can sometimes draw more attention than the offending content in the first place."
Biotech

iPods Can Make Pacemakers Malfunction

Submitted by Radon360
Radon360 writes "According to a recent study performed by a 17-year-old high school student in conjunction with the Thoracic and Cardiovascular Institute at Michigan State University, iPods can cause pacemakers to malfunction. In a study of 100 patients, iPods interfered with the pacemaker's ability to monitor the patient's heart rhythm, up to 18 inches away in some cases. Although the results may be alarming, the senior author adds that their findings require more study."
The Almighty Buck

Domain Profiteering from the Va. Tech Shootings

Submitted by Radon360
Radon360 writes "Within hours of the Virginia Tech shooting rampage, dozens of domain names that reflected this tragedy were snapped up by those looking to profit from the later auction and sale of these names. Cybersquatting on popular word combinations after a big news event is not uncommon. However, at what point does making money from other people's misfortunes cross the line? When the names of the victims were released, domains such as jarrettlane.com were also claimed."
Intel

Intel to move to 45nm in 2nd Half of 2007

Submitted by Crow T. Trollbot
Crow T. Trollbot writes "Intel has announced that it's moving to a 45-nanometer fab process for its Penryn family of processors in the second half of 2007. This is a fairly aggressive move, and potentially a big challange to AMD. Intel is widley believed to have an edge on AMD with its current Core2 line of processors, and the majority of AMD's processor are still done in in 90nm, with AMD just now transitioning to 65nm, and no plans for 45nm until mid-2008."
United States

Digital Fair Use bill introduced to US House

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica reports that "US Representative Rick Boucher (D-VA) and John Doolittle (R-CA) today announced the Freedom And Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship Act of 2007 (FAIR USE Act). The bill's aim is to help put an end to the madness circulating around the general imbalance that has befallen copyright in recent years.""
PlayStation (Games)

Surgical success linked to skill at video games

Submitted by mjh
mjh writes "According to The Guardian, "A study has found a direct link between skill at video gaming and skill at keyhole, or laparoscopic, surgery. Young surgeons who spent at least three hours a week playing video games in the past made 37% fewer errors, were 27% faster, and scored 42% better overall than surgeons who had never played a video game at all." The sample size they quote seems rather small, but it suggests that Steven Johnson might be right."

If a group of _N persons implements a COBOL compiler, there will be _N-1 passes. Someone in the group has to be the manager. -- T. Cheatham