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ZerocarboN writes "The Gigapan camera is a simple robotic platform for capturing very high-resolution (gigapixel and up) panoramic images from a standard digital camera. Sponsored by Google, CMU and the NASA Ames Intelligent Robotics Group, the Global Connection Project has also developed software which places you inside the panorama and lets you explore. The Gigapan beta site already consists of several hundred example panoramas."
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~globalconn/gigapan.html

Hugh Pickens writes "Sergei Morozov, Governor of the Russian province of Ulyanovsk, has decreed September 12 a Day of Conception and is giving couples time off from work to procreate. Couples who give birth nine months later on Russia's national day — June 12 — will receive money, cars, refrigerators and other prizes. The New York Times reports that this is the third year the competition has been going on and so far, the region's birth rate is up 4.5 percent compared to the same period last year. Russia's population has dropped since the 1991 Soviet collapse, fed by declining birth rates, a low life expectancy, a spike in emigration, a frayed health care system and other factors. The country — the world's largest by area — now has just 141.4 million citizens, making it one of the most sparsely settled nations. Experts estimate that Russia's population could fall another 22 percent by 2050 with a devastating impact on the workforce, military recruitment and family formation."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "An excellent article by Maura Corbett reminds us that the copyright warnings on major studio dvd's misstate copyright law, ignoring "fair use" under the Copyright Act. She cites as an example the fact that warnings on many Universal DVDs state, in part, that "any unauthorized exhibition, distribution or copying of this film or any part thereof (including soundtrack) is an infringement of the relevant copyright and will subject the infringer to severe civil and criminal penalties" and reminds us that this statement "is simply untrue — the federal copyright statutes specifically allow unauthorized reproduction for criticism, commentary and other purposes." An example of what Ms. Corbett is referring to is the holding of the United States Supreme Court in SONY v. Universal (the Betamax case), which specifically held that a consumer's copying of entire television programs, for personal use, was a "fair use". This is but one of the many fair uses that is ignored by the motion picture industry's misleading warnings."

Long criticized for keeping track of regular everyday citizens, the government's anti-terror database will officially close Sept. 17. The Threat and Local Observation Notices or TALON, was established in 2002 by then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz as a way to collect and evaluate information about possible threats to U.S. servicemembers and defense civilians all over the world. Congress and others protested its apparent use as an unauthorized citizen tracking database. The TALON system came under fire in 2005 for improperly storing information about some civilian individuals and non-government-affiliated groups on its database. The Air Force developed TALON, or the Threat and Local Observation Notice system in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as a way to gather data on possible terrorist threats. Anti-war groups and other organizations, protested after it was revealed last year that the military had monitored anti-war activities, organizations and individuals who attended peace rallies. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/18609
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/18609

BlueVoodoo writes "It has been said that the database wars are over and the relational database won. However, anyone who believes this state of affairs has led to peace and prosperity among programmers hasn't tried using a relational database to back Java objects lately. Try the object-oriented alternative known as db4o."

zerk writes "The folks at Spread Firefox are talking about their next marketing campaign. One of the more interesting ideas is a Firefox sponsored car in the Indianapolis 500. It's worth taking a look just to see the gorgeous 3d rendering!"

writertype writes "Are you a slob? Do you pile papers on top of folders on top of game boxes? Here's the thing that those anal neat people can't even conceive of: you're more productive than they are. That's the conclusion of "A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder," by Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman, a new book that argues neatness is overrated, costs money, wastes time and quashes creativity."