Slashdot

davejenkins writes "I recently moved to a new house. On a whim, I googled the address, only to find my personal details, the price, and other fundamentals of the deal right there on a website called blockshopper.com. Worried about the possible privacy violations, I asked them to remove my data, to which they responded that all the listing details were public record, and thay could do whatever they wanted with it. After some yelling and screaming on the phone, I finally (now months later) got an email to a link where I could pay them to become unlisted. This seems like a privacy extortion racket. Is it okay to profit from public records like that? Is it ethical to demand payment to be unlisted?"
http://southflorida.blockshopper.com/unlisted

"We know what's best for you"

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "AT&T and Verizon will be shutting down their old, analog AMPS networks next Monday, and AT&T will also turn off its old TDMA network, with smaller providers expected to follow thanks to a sunset date set by the FCC. After these old networks are shut down, the networks will be all digital. Of course, if you have one of those old fashioned 'just a phone' cellphones and it happens to be analog, you'd best enjoy the last few days before it becomes useless."

AtomicSnarl writes "Grass beats Corn by 5:1 for Ethanol according to UDSA and DOE testing. Now maybe we can get paid for our lawnmower clippings and go back to the days of inexpensive tortillas!"

Provocateur writes "A former radio engineer has invented a device that could possibly kill cancer cells with radio waves — in his garage. He is a cancer patient himself. This ham radio operator had an idea in the middle of the night. This inspiring story has it all for /. fans: the motivation, the garage, the hacking together of hardware and kitchen utensils, and initial testing on hotdogs — what's not to like?"
http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=67742

Via 1up, BusinessWeek has up an article examining Electronic Arts' recent purchase of BioWare. In amongst the discussion of money and diversifying the company, there's a note that we may see BioWare technologies show up in other EA games. "In what would arguably be a more interesting development, BioWare could become an incubator of innovative ideas and technologies that could eventually filter into EA's other properties. Gibeau envisions individual EA teams developing technical and gameplay expertise that could be shared across all of the company's titles. He cites, for instance, a dialogue system developed by BioWare for the upcoming Mass Effect game, which allows players to engage in hyperrealistic conversation with computer-generated characters. 'The dialogue engine is something we will almost immediately look at as an asset for other teams,' says Gibeau." For folks who just can't get enough Mass Effect, Sci-Fi is showing a special on the game right around its launch date later this month.