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TheSauce writes "In a fairly concise one-pager from Chris Anderson, at Wired, the editor posits that all of our current (or now previous) models for collecting data are dead. The content is compelling. It notes that we've entered the Age of the Petabyte — where one can collect immense amounts of data that are paradigm agnostic. It goes on to add a comment from the head of Google's R&D, that we need an update to George Box's maxim: 'All models are wrong, and increasingly you can succeed without them.' Have we reached a time where all of our tool-sets are now made moot by vast clouds of information and strictly applied maths?"

An anonymous reader writes "InfoWeek blogger Alex Wolfe proposes a novel solution to the ongoing spate of RIAA lawsuits over alleged music copying. He suggests legislation which cuts back corporate copyrights from 120 years to 5 years. 'We should do what we do to children who misbehave,' he writes. 'Take away their privileges.' Wolfe says this is regardless of the misunderstanding surrounding the latest case, which apparently isn't about ripping CDs to one's own computer. As to those who say copyrights are a right: "That's simply a misunderstanding of their purpose. Copyrights, like patents, weren't implemented to protect their owners in perpetuity. They are part of a dance which attempts to balance off societal benefits against incentives for writers and inventors. You want to incentivize people to push the state of the creative and technical arts, but you don't want give those folks such overbearing protections that future advances by other innovators are stifled." What do you think; is it time to cut off the record industry?"

Amazon's Kindle e-book may have sold out in record time, but there's still a lot of discussion about the device's merits. Neil Gaiman likes it well enough, but it's sent Robert Scoble into a fit of apoplectic rage. For a real, meaty, hands-on look at the way the device operates in everyday life, Gamers With Jobs writer Julian Murdoch has a slice of life with the Kindle. He takes us through his Thanksgiving holiday weekend with the device, noting the quirks (good and bad) that cropped up with Amazon's new toy. "Short of reading in the tub, the Kindle is easier to read in more places, positions, and situations than a physical book ... But it's far from perfect. It is expensive. The cover, which I find completely necessary, is in desperate need of more secure attachment (Velcro works great). The book selection is less-than-perfect, although I imagine this will improve with every passing day. And Amazon needs marketing help. The Kindle's launch reeked of 'get it out fast.' The big-picture marketing efforts (like video demonstrations and blurbs from authors) were great, but simple things like communicating how freakin' easy it is to get non-Amazon content on to the device, for free, remain horribly misunderstood."

Bergkamp10 writes "Consumer and corporate use of the Internet could overload the current capacity and lead to brown-outs in two years unless backbone providers invest billions of dollars in new infrastructure, according to a new study. A flood of new video and other Web content could overwhelm the Net by 2010 unless backbone providers invest up to US $137 billion in new capacity, more than double what service providers plan to invest, according to the study by Nemertes Research Group. In North America alone, backbone investments of $42 billion to $55 billion will be needed in the next three to five years to keep up with demand, Nemertes said. Quoting from the study: 'Our findings indicate that although core fiber and switching/routing resources will scale nicely to support virtually any conceivable user demand, Internet access infrastructure, specifically in North America, will likely cease to be adequate for supporting demand within the next three to five years.' Internet users will create 161 exabytes of new data this year."

An anonymous reader writes "Cory Doctorow, founder of Boing Boing, says he doesn't have a problem in principle with the automated network defense systems that guard the Internet against malware, spamigation bots, and other network nasties. However, in his article 'The Future of Internet Immune Systems,' he bemoans the problems caused by 'Internet autoimmune disorder' — where the network defenses designed to block network attacks are automated and instantaneous, but the systems in place to reverse erroneous lockdowns are manual and unresponsive."

Z80xxc! writes "I was recently reading a Coding Horror post about locking your workstation. It mentions playing tricks on users who neglect to lock their computers when they leave. As someone who always locks their workstation, I was wondering what others here think about this — do you lock your workstations? Do you force users of your systems to lock theirs? And, most importantly, what kinds of pranks do you pull to give them that little reminder to lock up?"
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000997.html

Stony Stevenson writes "A court document in a drug smuggling case has shown that the private email service Hushmail has been cooperating with police in handing over user emails. Hushmail claims to offer unreadable email as it uses PGP encryption technology and a company specific key management system that it says will ensure only the sender and recipient can read the emails. However it seems the Canadian company has been divulging keys to the American authorities."

JjcampNR writes "Moments after announcing the availability of Tivo powered Comcast DVR boxes, the serial port on most Comcast digital cable boxes manufactured by Motorola were disabled. After a large volume of calls to Comcast by a hoard of angry Tivo users (most Series 2 Tivo boxes use the serial connection to change channels on the cable box) word from Comcast support is that new firmware was the reason for the crippling of the serial port. While Comcast is currently blaming the issue on Motorola for releasing the firmware, the timing of this awfully convenient. My Tivo Series 2 box has worked perfectly through the serial port on a number of Motorola cable boxes over the last few years. With the current list of dirty tricks growing longer by the day, increased pressure from Verizon, and revenue down 50% for the last quarter, how long can Comcast continue to ignore customers to make up for their own shortcomings?"

New Apple General Counsel Daniel Cooperman won his first battle on behalf of his new company yesterday, successfully convincing a judge to dismiss a shareholder lawsuit over Apple's stock-options backdating mess.

The New York City Employees Retirement System had sued Apple claiming that the company's practice of backdating stock options diluted the value of the stock. Apple has admitted that it improperly backdated stock options on several occasions, including two awards to CEO Steve Jobs, and last December it took a $84 million charge to account for the options.

But the suit had to show that Apple shareholders lost money in order to recover damages...
http://www.news.com/8301-13579_3-9818148-37.html

cbhacking writes "A post on the blog of Microsoft's Scott Guthrie has some exciting news for .NET developers: with the release of Visual Studio 2008 later this year, the .NET Framework 3.5 source code will be released for reference purposes. Most of the libraries, including System.Runtime, System.Security, System.Windows.Forms, and System.Web will be made available with the release of VS2008, with more some additional non-core libraries coming later. The code will be available for either standalone download and viewing, or as debugging symbols with associated source for integrated debugging with VS2008.

There's a catch though: although the license abbreviation used in the post, MS-RL, usually refers to the copyleft and OSI-approved Microsoft Reciprocal License (which allows modification and redistribution), the license actually explicitly mentioned and linked to is the Microsoft Reference License, which prohibits modification or redistribution. Although an open-source release of the code would be great, this is still likely to be very helpful for debugging, examining behavior of the libraries, and selecting the correct methods or algorithms for a given situation."

StationM writes "Newsnight at BBC2 has revealed that British were secured only by a bicycle lock and 'trust' in the integrity of the officers in charge of the weapons. "Newsnight has discovered that until the early days of the Blair government the RAF's nuclear bombs were armed by turning a bicycle lock key...The Royal Navy argued that officers of the Royal Navy as the Senior Service could be trusted:

"It would be invidious to suggest... that Senior Service officers may, in difficult circumstances, act in defiance of their clear orders".

Neither the Navy nor the RAF installed PAL (Permissive Active Link) protection on their nuclear weapons.

The RAF kept their unsafeguarded bombs at airbases until they were withdrawn in 1998."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/7097101.stm

sure makes me feel safe!"

Medistem Laboratories, Inc. in collaboration with researchers from the University of Western Ontario, University of Alberta, and the Bio-Communications Research Institute, has published a paper describing a novel stem cell population derived from menstrual blood. The publication, entitled "Endometrial Regenerative Cells: A Novel Stem Cell Population" appeared in today's Journal of Translational Medicine.

A UN-sponsored Internet conference ended with little progress on the issue of US control over the domain name system run by ICANN, a California-based nonprofit over which the US. government retains veto power. By controlling the core systems, the United States indirectly influences the way much of the world uses the Internet. As the conference drew to a close, the Russian representative, Konstantin Novoderejhkin, called on the United Nations secretary-general to create a working group to develop ''practical steps'' for moving Internet governance ''under the control of the international community.'' The United States insists that the existing arrangements ensure the Internet's stability and there's little indication that the US government and ICANN plan to cede their roles over domain names anytime soon. ''I think (there are) a small number of countries that are very agitated and almost don't care what the facts are,'' said Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, who stepped down as ICANN's chairman earlier this month. ''It's a very small vocal group bothered by this issue. ICANN has existed for eight years and done a great job with its plans for internationalization.'' With no concrete recommendations for action, the only certainty going forward is that any resentment about the American influence will only grow as more users from the developing world come online, changing the face of the global network. The next forum will held next year in New Delhi, India.

coondoggie writes "With only a week before the busiest airline travel day of the year the Government Accounting Office today issued a scathing and chilling report on airline security: Bomb making materials costing less that $150 were purchased and carried past airport security screening in 19 US airports. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/21962"
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/21962