In France, this idiotic law was passed more than two years ago under the name "private copy tax". See
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copie_priv%C3%A9e
http://www.chere-copie-privee.org/ (sorry it's all in French)

    1Tb USB external HD -> tax=20euro
    100Gb USB stick -> tax=12.50euro

As a daddy who uses hard drives to store family camcorder vids, I strongly resent this.

The Aquarius/SAC-D salinity-sensing instrument is not exactly brand-new. It is an L-band microwave radiometer based on the same principle as the one on the SMOS satellite launched in October 2009. Still, it helps to have more satellites monitoring the oceans.