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Steve Kerrison writes "With the power of CPUs ever-increasing and the number of cores in a system increasing too, having a supercomputer sit under your desk is no longer a pipe dream. But generally speaking, the extreme high end of modern computing consists of a big ugly box housing that generates a lot of noise. A UK system integrator has developed a concept PC that blows that all away. The eXtreme Concept PC (XCP) has quite a romantic design story, with inspiration coming from concept cars and the sarcophagus-like Cray T90. The end result is a system that resembles a Cylon — computing power never looked so ominous. Although just a concept, the company behind the design reckons there could be a (small) market for the systems, with varying levels of compute power accompanied by appropriate (say, LN2) cooling."

aboivin writes "The Songwriters association of Canada has put forward a proposition for collective licensing of music for personal use. The Right to Equitable Remuneration for Music File Sharing would legalize sharing of a copy of a copyrighted musical work without motive of financial gain, for a monthly fee of $5.00 applied to all Canadian internet connections, which would be distributed to creators and rights holders. From the proposal: 'File sharing is both a revolution in music distribution and a very positive phenomenon. The volunteer efforts of millions of music fans creates a much greater choice of repertoire for consumers while allowing songs — both new and old, well known and obscure — to be heard. All that's needed to fulfill this revolution in distribution is a way for Creators and rights holders to be paid.'"

An anonymous reader writes "The rumor mill is already raging over the potential functionality and capacity for Google's online storage service we talked about earlier this week (the company says 'it makes sense' to put all its Web apps under the same umbrella). But Internet rights advocates are now crying foul over liability issues, a probable lack of encryption and a cash-cow model that could scan all your personal data for advertising keywords. From the article: "'Google would be wise to offer users an option to encrypt your information,' says Nimrod Kozlovski, a professor of Internet law at Tel Aviv University. 'It really needs to have really detailed explanations of what the legal expectations are for storing your info.'""

inkslinger77 writes to mention that MySQL has published their software roadmap out through 2009 and it includes an injection of code from Google. Google remains relatively secretive about how their systems work but they are one of the largest users of MySQL. Earlier this year Google signed a Contributor License Agreement which provides a framework for them to contribute code to MySQL. "The search company has done a lot of work customizing MySQL to meet its special needs, which include better database replication, and tools to monitor a high volume of database instances, Axmark said in an interview at MySQL's user conference in Paris. MySQL will include some of those capabilities in future versions of its database, probably in point upgrades to MySQL 6.0, which is scheduled for general availability in late 2008, Axmark said."

Via Eurogamer, a post on the 'semi-official' ThreeSpeech blog essentially saying that Sony doesn't see porn as an issue for the upcoming Home PS3 service. Sony's Phil Harrison was on the other end of the blog's questions, and after reminding us that avatars won't be able to interact, it will be easy to blacklist people, and they will have lots of filters in place: "Well I'm disappointed that you would use those as the first questions ... I think Home should be used for a much wider and more beneficial scope than [porn], but I think that people can express their creativity inside Home in a wide variety of ways and it's not necessarily for us to dictate what that should be."

paulraps writes "Notorious Swedish file-sharing website The Pirate Bay is planning to buy its own nation in an attempt to get around troublesome international copyright laws. The organisation, the world's largest bit torrent tracker, has set its sights on Sealand, a former British naval platform in the North Sea that has been designated a 'micronation' and claims to be outside UK jurisdiction. With a target price of £500m it won't be cheap, but Pirate Bay says contributors will become honorary citizens."

mrthoughtful writes "We have worked for several man-years on the development of various proprietary software components, some of which we have no decided to release under GPL, including a new xml scripting language.

What we are looking for is a checklist, or a licensing migration guide in order to best manage the transition regarding the distribution, maintenance and management of OSS under GPL.

Unfortunately, most of the links I can find are based on how users may convert from proprietary to GPL software — but there is little I can find regarding the migration process from the supplier's point of view."

An anonymous reader writes, "Sun is about to announce its plans for open-sourcing Java SE and ME, according to CRN — and they're going to use the GPL, not their own CDDL or another less-restrictive license."

skelator2821 writes to tell us about the debut of the OpenMoko, a Linux phone with GPS that is open from top to bottom. The device is set to debut to developers this month for $350, according to the article, but there is no detail on how to get your hands on one, and no link to the manufacturer (given only as "FIC"). From the article: "This is the first phone in a long time to get us really interested in what it is, what it isn't, and the philosophy behind it. The philosophy is the thing that makes Linux great... it is really open. It runs the latest kernel, 2.6.18 as of a few weeks ago, and you can get software from a repository with apt-get."