DRobson - Slashdot User

China Hijacks Popular BitTorrent Sites 174

Posted by timothy on Saturday November 08, 2008 @11:01PM from the state-is-still-not-your-friend dept.

frogger writes "China is not new to censoring the Internet, but up until now, BitTorrent sites have never been blocked. Recently, however, several reports came in from China indicating that popular BitTorrent sites such as Mininova, isoHunt and The Pirate Bay had been hijacked. The sites became inaccessible, instead redirecting to the leading Chinese search engine Baidu."

Submission + - iPhone available on all networks in Germany

Submitted by teslar on Wednesday November 21, 2007 @08:15AM

teslar writes: The Spiegel tells us (in German), that as a result of Vodafone's court order, T-Mobile is now selling the iPhone unlocked and without a contract at a bargain price of 999 Euros — 600 Euros more than it costs on contract. People who have bought their iPhone on or after the 19th of November can have it be unlocked for free. However, the deal is only temporary until the legal situation is clear — T-Mobile is appealing the decision and is threatening to sue Vodafone for damages.

Submission + - XOgiving OLPCs to work without mesh, over jabber (laptop.org)

Submitted by

Dave Crossland

on Wednesday November 21, 2007 @04:12AM

Dave Crossland writes: "One Laptop Per Child is running its "Give One Get One" (G1G1) sale for North Americans — only 6 days left! — and one of the most widely touted innovations in the XO laptop is the mesh networking which is integrated into all the applications. Since people buying XOs in the G1G1 scheme will only get ONE, it was announced on the sugar mailing today that "for G1G1, there is a Jabber server preconfigured. When you have internet access, [the mesh features] will "Just Work". The Neighborhood screen does show all those on that server currently.""

Submission + - Government Study finds P2P increases CD Sales

Submitted by Vaystrem on Monday November 12, 2007 @12:11AM

Vaystrem writes: On November 2nd 2007 Canada's Intellectual Policy Directorate released a report entitled "The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing on the Purchase of Music: A Study for Industry Canada" From the abstract:

Our review of existing econometric studies suggests that P2P file-sharing tends to decrease music purchasing. However, we find the opposite, namely that P2P file-sharing tends to increase rather than decrease music purchasing. Among Canadians who engage in P2P file-sharing, our results suggest that for every 12 P2P downloaded songs, music purchases increase by 0.44 CDs. That is, downloading the equivalent of approximately one CD increases purchasing by about half of a CD.

The study was paid for by Public Works and Government Services Canada. Details of the contract, methodology and the original data files from the study may be found here.

Submission + - Northeastern sues Google over search patent (news.com) 1

Submitted by mytrip on Sunday November 11, 2007 @10:49PM

mytrip writes: Google faces a federal patent infringement lawsuit by Northeastern University over technology used in its core Web search system, according to legal papers filed last week.

The complaint was filed on November 6 in Marshall, in the Eastern District of Texas — the U.S. court with a history of decisions that are highly favorable to plaintiffs in patent cases — but the case only came to light over the weekend.

The plaintiffs are Boston-based Northeastern University and Jarg, a start-up founded by a Northeastern University professor that is the exclusive licensee of search technology patented in 1997, a year before Google was incorporated.

The case centers on U.S. patent No. 5,694,593, titled "Distributed Computer Database System and Method," which was invented by Kenneth Baclawski, an associate professor in Northeastern's computer science department.

Baclawski is co-founder of Waltham, Mass.-based Jarg, which was incorporated in 1998. He first published his method of searching and retrieving information from large, distributed databases in 1994, according to court documents.

Submission + - P2P file-sharing study released by Industry Canada

Submitted by Techie Coward on Friday November 02, 2007 @08:20PM

Techie Coward writes: Industry Canada has released a study regarding the effect of P2P file-sharing on CD purchases. The study concludes that P2P file-sharing does not have an overall positive or negative effect on CD sales. Additionaly, the study finds that among those who do download, those who download more purchase more CDs, and that the price of CDs has no overall effect on CD sales.

Submission + - Asus Eee PC Tear-Down And Review (hothardware.com)

Submitted by

MojoKid

on Friday November 02, 2007 @09:20AM

MojoKid writes: "The Asus Eee PC is now available for sale in the US as of today and there is more than enough buzz about this new, low-cost, ultra-portal computer that ships with a custom KDE-built interface for Linux. Though the machine has been positioned by some as a response to the XO-1 laptop from OLPC, but it appears to be a lot less toy-like in its design. This full evaluation shows the Eee PC is built on Intel mobile Celeron technology and the 910GML Express chipset. Power consumption was measured at a miserly 15 Watts idle and 18 Watts under load with battery life in excess of three hours. There is also an abundance of software pre-installed on the machine, like Open Office applications, Skype and Pigeon."

Submission + - AP Sues VeriSign Over News Aggregation (itworld.com)

Submitted by

narramissic

on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @10:56AM

narramissic writes: "You may remember a while back when Agence France Presse (AFP), one of the world's largest wire services, sued Google News for copyright infringement. It was widely believed then that the Associated Press (AP) had threatened to file a similar lawsuit. Well, now they have — only not against Google. According to a report on ITworld, the AP has filed a suit against VeriSign that seeks to stop VeriSign's Moreover news aggregation services from publishing the AP's news content."

Submission + - Popular Mechanics and the 2007 Breakthrough Awards

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @10:23AM

Anonymous Coward writes: "Popular Mechanics is holding its 2007 Breakthrough Awards conference today, which includes live blogging from its panels on science, sustainability and energy. The breakthrough awards feature 10 cutting-edge projects and eight bold ideas. Among the winners are Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute for his work on sustainability and efficiency, Jeff Han for the hands-on computer, Hod Lipson and the Make-Anything Machine and Shawn Frayne for the non-turbine wind alternative."

Submission + - 10 Inventive Home Automation Applications (cepro.com)

Submitted by

plonkee

on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @10:23AM

plonkee writes: "Want some ideas for your smart house? CE Pro publishes 10 inventive ways to automate and smarten your house, like a house that says "intruder alert" when a robber breaks in, a thermometer that turns off your AC if the outside air is cooler than the inside temperature, and a refrigerator that can text message your phone."

Submission + - Intel's X38 Chipset Debuts - DDR2 and DDR3 Tested (hothardware.com)

Submitted by

bigwophh

on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @10:21AM

bigwophh writes: "It has been quite some time since Intel launched a desktop chipset targeted squarely at PC enthusiasts. Of course, the P965 and current P35 have both been well received by motherboard manufactures and the enthusiast community, but these chipsets were actually designed for the mainstream space. In fact, the 975X Express, which launched almost two years ago, was the last desktop chipset Intel specifically marketed for enthusiasts. With today's launch, however, the Intel desktop chipset line-up gets a new flagship. To lay the foundation for the upcoming arrival of Intel's 45nm processors, the company is officially introducing the X38 chipset. The X38 takes all of the things that have made the P35 a success and adds a slew of new features designed to increase memory and graphics subsystem performance like PCI Express 2.0 support and Intel Extreme Memory technology. One of the motherboards evaluated in this article even features an embedded Linux-based OS that boots in a matter a seconds."

Submission + - Sydney siders urged to pack 'go bag'

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16, 2007 @09:47PM

An anonymous reader writes: In a new case of trying to spread fear to win votes Sydney-siders are being asked to pack 'go bags', it's been a big story here and one of the better articles is on the Sydney Morning Herald website. There's even a 'Get ready Sydney' official site.

Submission + - How to hack Visible Path... kind of (visiblepath.com)

Submitted by

Shanee

on Monday July 16, 2007 @08:17PM

Shanee writes: "Hey, I work with Visible Path. We posted some JavaScript and instructions for embedding Visible Path's free social network search capabilities into any web page or app. I thought some of your readers might be interested. Check out the JavaScript here: http://info.visiblepath.com/blog/8341312.html . Also, if you haven't come across Visible Path, it's a professional social networking tool that measures the strength of your connections, so you can see how well you know your contacts and not just how many people you know. www.visiblepath.com Let me know if you have any questions, Shanee Ben-Zur sbenzur@vocecomm.com"

Submission + - YouTube sued by English Premier League

Submitted by globring on Sunday May 06, 2007 @10:45PM

globring writes: The Telegraph is reporting that the Premier League is to sue internet site YouTube for alleged copyright infringement. The organisation said the video-sharing website had "knowingly misappropriated" its intellectual property by encouraging footage to be viewed on its site. The lawsuit seeks class action status and asks for a disgorgement of profits made by the alleged actions, as well as unspecified damages. It claims YouTube had consciously encouraged people to view content on its site in order to raise its profile, violating the material's commercial value.

Submission + - India's IT Sector Scrambling for Skilled Workers

Submitted by

tech10171968

on Sunday May 06, 2007 @09:24PM

tech10171968 writes: "India's software companies plan to add tens of thousands of new jobs this year as the information technology sector continues to boom. But as Anjana Pasricha reports from New Delhi, there are concerns that the country may be running out of skilled workers."

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