Soulskill - Slashdot User

Photographer threatened with legal action after asserting his copyright-> 0

Submitted by JamieKitson on Friday May 25, @05:14AM

JamieKitson writes "Photographer Jay Lee got more than he bargained for after sending some DMCA take down notifications out to hosts of sites using one of his pictures. One Candice Shwagger accuses him of everything from conspiracy over local sheriff elections to child abuse. Since Candice is now threatening legal action Jay has said he'll take down the post, so here's a snap shot.

After reading the story I checked for use of my own pictures and found one of them being used on a review site without even a credit. Here's a snap shot of that page."
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Who sends Google the most takedown notices? Microsoft -> 0

Submitted by

nk497

on Friday May 25, @04:40AM

nk497 writes "Google has released details on the copyright takedown notices its received over the past year, and the most requests by far have been from Microsoft. Over the past year, Google has received DMCA takedown notices for 2,544,209 URLs over Microsoft-related piracy, with NBC and the RIAA ranking second and third. Many of the reports do not come directly from companies such as Microsoft, but via firms set up only to chase copyright issues. The most popular targets appear to be file-sharing sites. "These days it’s not unusual for us to receive more than 250,000 requests each week, which is more than what copyright owners asked us to remove in all of 2009," said Fred von Lohmann, Google senior copyright counsel, adding it takes on average 11 hours for Google to take action."
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Bessel beam "tractor beam" concept theoretically demonstrated-> 0

Submitted by cylonlover on Friday May 25, @03:18AM

cylonlover writes "Last year, NASA revealed it was evaluating three potential “tractor beam” technologies to deliver planetary or atmospheric particles to a robotic rover or orbiting spacecraft. At the time, the third of these, which involved the use of a Bessel beam, only existed on paper. Researchers at Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) have now proven the theory behind the concept, demonstrating how a tractor beam can be realized in the real world – albeit on a very small scale."
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IT price hike inquiry kicks off: Submissions wanted-> 0

Submitted by wirelessduck on Friday May 25, @03:01AM

wirelessduck writes "After some recent complaints from a Labor MP about price markups on software and technology devices in Australia, Federal Government agencies decided to look in to the matter and an official parliamentary inquiry into the issue was started.

"The Federal Parliament’s inquiry into local price markups on technology goods and services has gotten under way, with the committee overseeing the initiative issuing its terms of reference and calling for submissions from the general public on the issue.""
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Faculty vote for open access policy at UC San Francisco-> 0

Submitted by Marian the Librarian on Thursday May 24, @11:11PM

Marian the Librarian writes "UCSF is among the first public institutions to adopt an open access policy and the largest scientific institution to have such a policy. The policy, voted unanimously by the faculty, will allow UCSF authors to put electronic versions of their published scientific articles on an open access repository making their research findings freely available to the public."
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BitTorrent Traffic Falls In The U.S.-> 0

Submitted by CAKAS on Thursday May 24, @11:08PM

CAKAS writes "After legal actions taken by several industry outfits, BitTorrent traffic has fallen in the United States to the all time low of 12.7 percent of internet traffic. However, this trend seems to be unique to the U.S. — In other parts of the world, like Europe and Asia, BitTorrent traffic continues to rise. "According to Sandvine, the absence of legal alternatives is one of the reasons for these high P2P traffic shares". In the U.S. legal content delivery has flourished and provided customers easy access to content. This seems to suggest that due to these alternatives, people are less willing to pirate and pay the publishers for entertainment."
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What The Final Decision On Oracle v. Google Really Means-> 0

Submitted by

snydeq

on Thursday May 24, @05:59PM

snydeq writes "The jury decided yesterday that Google did not infringe on Oracle's patents related to Android. Fantastic news — but the wider view offers little comfort, writes Simon Phipps. 'While the specific news of the patent phase verdict is good news for most people, the case still tells a sad story about software patents. The complexity found by the jury shows why software patents fail to deliver on the contract with society that they should represent. Unlike real patents, software patents contain little of value to the programmer: no sample code, only stylized algorithms. Instead, they consist mainly of a list of ways a lawyer can assert that the patent has been infringed. Even then, they are linguistically complex, leaving juries scratching their heads to interpret.'"
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Higher hard drive prices are the new normal-> 0

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 24, @05:47PM

An anonymous reader writes "It’s been several months since the flood waters in Thailand began receding and since ExtremeTech posted its last edition of HDD PriceWatch, but we’ve finally begun to see more stable prices for various hard drives. Through February and March, prices fluctuated significantly, often moving in contradictory directions. Now that things have settled, how’s the storage market faring?"
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Little health risk seen from Fukushima's radioactivity -> 2

Submitted by

gbrumfiel

on Wednesday May 23, @01:11PM

gbrumfiel writes "Two independent reports show that the public and most workers received only low doses of radiation following last year's meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. Nature reports that the risks presented by the doses are small, even though some are above guidelines and limits set by the Japanese government. Few people will develop cancer as a result of the accident, and those that do may never be able to conclusively link their illness to the meltdowns. The greatest risk lies with the workers who struggled in the early days to bring the reactors under control. So far no ill-effects have been detected. At Chernobyl, by contrast, the highest exposed workers died quickly from radiation sickness."
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ITC judge calls for US XBox ban in Motorola patent battle-> 0

Submitted by symbolset on Wednesday May 23, @01:18AM

symbolset writes "In the long running complaint between Motorola and Microsoft, Judge David Shaw of the ITC recommended Monday a ban on XBox consoles, as they are found to infringe Motorola's patents. The judge also ordered Microsoft post a bond of 7 percent of the retail price of all unsold US XBox inventory. The decision will go to the ITC’s board of commissioners who will either uphold the recommendation or overturn it."
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