Slashdot

oahazmatt writes "After sending cease-and-desist letters to the Drudge Retort and offering an apology and a promise for a solution, the Associated Press is now charging bloggers per word for the reproduction of AP-generated content. It starts at $12.50 for 5 to 25 words and climbs from there. (Incidentally, this information was paraphrased from a non-AP reporter, so no need to break out the credit card.)"
http://license.icopyright.net/user/offer.act?gid=3&inprocess=t&sid=36&tag=3.5721%3Ficx_id%3DD90VCFA01&urs=WEBPAGE&urt=nullit

oahazmatt writes "CNN is reporting that Lori Drew, a 49 year old woman, is heading into Federal Court today regarding the suicide of Megan Meier, a teenager who committed suicide which may be the result of hateful messages sent to Meier that were allegedly composed under a false account by Drew, Meier's neighbor. It is unknown whether or not the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act or other cyber crime statutes may be applied to this case, as such acts are targeted towards illegal entry or the retrieval of unauthorized information, not sending hateful messages."
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/06/16/internet.suicide.ap/index.html

oahazmatt writes "According to a story by the Associated Press, Verizon Wireless will purchase Alltel for a total of $5.9 billion, making Verizon Wireless the largest cellular telecommunications corporation. While the purchase may meet some objection by the FTC it is expected to be approved by some analysts. The purchase is expected to be finalized at the end of the year. Could this be the end of Chad?"
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080605/verizon_wireless_alltel.html

Hiring folks who used to work at IBM or Google is not the same thing as "large companies control[ling] how Twitter works." Some day, you'll have a job and you'll understand that. [Sorry to be an asshole about this, but your comment just shouts "teenage kid who's never had a serious job."] People with experience with large-scale applications may already know solutions to some of the problems Twitter is seeing. Those solutions aren't always in the text books; and if they were trivial and obvious, then such applications would be much more common.

www.trapster.com

It's an interactive thingy where you post where cops are hiding in speed traps.

I'm surprised it's still up, honestly.

oahazmatt writes "Billionaire Carl Icahn is determined to make the Microsoft/Yahoo! merger happen. According to the Wall Street Journal: "The billionaire investor is launching a proxy fight seeking to replace the Internet company's entire 10-member board." The decision comes ahead of Thursday's deadline for nominating alternative board slates."
http://dailybriefing.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/05/15/icahn-going-after-yahoo-board/

In a New York Times article generally discussing Nintendo's gangbuster success with the Wii and DS, Reggie Fils-Aimie reveals that in the future the DS will more tightly integrate with the console. Full games will be downloadable to the Wii platform, and then transferable via wireless to the handheld. "In Japan, the DS's functionality extends beyond its game-playing ability. There the device is used to give information during museum tours, and to download content from the Wii. Some of those features will eventually be introduced into the North American market as well. 'To aggressively drive DS business we need to provide other forms of entertainment to excite the consumer,' said Mr. Fils-Amie."

According to MarketWatch, AT& T said that its pay phones will be phased out over the next year. A company spokeswoman declined to say how much revenue its pay-phone business generated, but the number is small and declining.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/att-quit-pay-phone-business/story.aspx?guid=%7B2CD463C6-8E77-45D2-9B56-B9684AFB56A5%7D

oahazmatt writes "In an interview with LinuxInsider, Darl McBride had some interesting things to say about SCO, recent judgements, the future of the company and how it's a rather exciting time to be a SCO employee. "It's like the boxer who has come out of the ring after getting all beaten up, and he comes over to his trainer and says, 'The guy didn't touch me.' And the trainer says, 'Then you better keep your eye on the ref, because somebody's beating the living hell out of you.'""
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/SCO-President-Darl-McBride-Its-Not-the-End-of-the-Line-60390.html

Wired unwraps the Zune 2, Microsoft's portable music player.

http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/topheadlines/~3/183851659/zomg-zune-2-has.html

ukscribe writes "Valleywag conducted a test of Google's fully-roboticized telephone business directory service, (800) GOOG-411. They report that the service outperformed human operators at Verizon and AT&T in finding telephone listings. However, they complain that the service uses a large array of different human voices to talk to you, and you "can't shut it up" by just saying your listing when it answers the phone. You must first listen to it say things like "calls are monitored for quality." I had hoped Google would be different from the phone companies in that respect."
http://valleywag.com/tech/surly-adopter/goog+411-would-be-great-if-it-would-shut-up-305834.php

mtenhagen writes "Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) chairman Dan Glickman and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) president Cary Sherman today announced the historic merger of the two organizations. The newly-created entity is being called the Music And Film IndustryAssociation of America(TM), Inc.

Read full press release"

Johnny Mnemonic writes "OS X, with some modifications, has been made to run fully on an Apple TV. Now you can have a OS X dev box, with 1Ghz CPU and 256MB of ram, for $299. Bring your own (HDMI) monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Boy, that was quick!"

Soltys writes "The overseer of the Internet's addressing system rejected for the second time the creation of a ".xxx" top-level domain, supported by some as a way to isolate adult content on the Internet.

Nine board members for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) voted against the proposal on Friday at ICANN's 28th International Public Meeting in Lisbon, Portugal. Five voted in favor, while one member abstained from voting, said Andrew Robertson, an ICANN spokesman."

Kelson writes "The Alternative Browser Alliance, which promotes the use of alternative browsers over Internet Explorer, has stopped promoting Firefox after nearly two years. According to the announcement, Firefox has sold out, gone mainstream, and "is no longer an alternative web browser."

Reportedly the site will throw its weight behind iCab, as it is guaranteed to remain alternative since it will never run on Windows Vista.""