sammyF70 writes "Every geek's favourite non-sci-fi show (the original UK one, not the abysmally bad German and US remakes) is coming back for a fourth season! According to the IMDB's message board, it should be on the air 'Juneish.' While you wait, you can check out what kind of vintage hardware will be on the show this time, and remember: if you illegally download movies, you will face the consequences!"

Dracophile writes "Contrary to yesterday's article about The Australian's report that the Australian government had put on the back burner plans to introduce Internet filter legislation before the next election, The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the government rejected claims that it had abandoned such plans, and that 'a spokeswoman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the government remained committed to the policy.' Unless the Australian Labor Party abandons the plan altogether, will the timing make any difference to voters?"

Hugh Pickens writes "Computerworld reports that movie director James Cameron, of Avatar and Titanic fame, is working with Malin Space Science Systems Inc. to build an updated 3-D camera that will be installed on the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity if completed in time, to be the machine's 'science-imaging workhorse,' says Michael Malin, who is working on the camera team. Malin delivered two cameras to be installed on the rover's main mast; however NASA has provided Malin with funding to work with Cameron to build alternatives to these two cameras. 'The fixed focal length [cameras] we just delivered will do almost all of the science we originally proposed. But they cannot provide a wide field of view with comparable eye stereo,' he says. 'With the zoom [cameras], we'll be able to take cinematic video sequences in 3-D on the surface of Mars.'"

An anonymous reader writes "I went across your post a few days ago saying that a machine connected to the Internet was all one needed to spy on most BitTorrent users of the Internet. I followed the link to find out that those researchers from INRIA claimed their attacks also worked for BitTorrent users on Tor. I didn't believe it at first, but then today I found this link on the Tor Project. It seems their attacks don't only link your real IP to your BitTorrent files on Tor but also to the web pages that you're browsing! Tell me it's a joke." No joke, but according to Jacob Appelbaum (a Tor developer), the security flaw is more nuanced — and the fault of software outside of Tor. Read on for his explanation of how the privacy benefits of Tor can be easily lost.

netcrawler writes "Steve Jobs' open letter on Flash has prompted someone at the Free Software Foundation Europe to ask him about his support of proprietary format H.264 over Theora. Jobs' pithy answer (email with headers) suggests Theora might infringe on existing patents and that 'a patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other "open source" codecs now.' Does he know something we don't?" Update: 05/01 00:38 GMT by T : Monty Montgomery of Xiph (the group behind Theora, as well as Ogg Vorbis, and more) provides a pointed, skeptical response to the implicit legal threat, below.

Nom du Keyboard writes "I was informed by my publisher this week that they would have to raise my e-book prices because they planned to sell them through the Apple iBooks store. How could this happen? A lot of my individual stories sell in the $1 to $3 range, which is well within the impulse purchase amount for many people. In this price range a 50-cent price difference may well be the difference between a purchase and a pass. Meanwhile, Apple is touting its new 'agency model,' whereby the publishers set the prices. However, it seems that Apple requires books sold in its iBook store have prices ending in .99 — nothing else." (More below.)

Jack Action writes "The University of British Columbia runs a summer camp where kids get to play computer games for three hours a day. The camp organizers say it is 'a good social opportunity for some kids who didn't fit into other programs.' However, health professionals declare they are 'troubled' by the camp. A professor in UBC's department of medicine says kids should be outside and engaged in 'unstructured play,' while the CEO of an NGO that monitors kids' health chimes in that they already spend too much time in front of screens and not exercising. Do the health experts have a point, or are they just criticizing something they don't understand, or perhaps is not to their taste?"

sciencehabit writes "At this point it's unclear how much of an environmental threat oil spreading from the BP spill will cause, but the federal government is mobilizing thousands of workers to prepare for the worst. They have a potential ally: microbes that have evolved an ability to break down oil that seeps from the ocean bottom. It gets devoured by a variety of bacteria, which eat it by chemically transforming its compounds into useful cellular constituents." Wired has some pictures of the spill from orbiting satellites.

netbuzz writes "A federal jury in Knoxville today has convicted David Kernell, 22, of two charges — misdemeanor computer fraud and felony obstruction of justice — in connection with the 2008 episode where he accessed the personal Yahoo email account of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and then initiated a worldwide rummaging of its contents. The obstruction charge carries a maximum prison term of 20 years."

geekd writes "Once again, DRM only hurts legit content purchasers: 'An unusual glitch has angered some Avatar Blu-ray owners. For these unlucky people, since the disc won't play on their Blu-ray players, their new Avatar DVD serves no real purpose other than to sit idly on the coffee table. ... It appears the main culprit concerning playback issues with Avatar is, ironically, the disc's DRM (digital rights management). ... Even with updated firmware, a lot of Blu-ray players weren't prepared for these security measures. Despite the security problems, bootleggers are having a field day. Pirated copies of Avatar, according to Los Angeles Times, were available as early as January.'" Reader Murpster adds that this problem isn't specific to the Blu-ray version: "Got a regular Avatar DVD and it won't play on either of my DVD players. It will play on one computer DVD drive, if I want to watch it on a 12-inch screen."