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Politics

Submission + - New study reveals media's servitude to government (salon.com)

Submitted by gauharjk
gauharjk writes: A newly released study (PDF) from students at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government provides the latest evidence of how thoroughly devoted the American establishment media is to amplifying and serving (rather than checking) government officials. This new study examines how waterboarding has been discussed by America's four largest newspapers over the past 100 years, and finds that the technique, almost invariably, was unequivocally referred to as "torture" — until the U.S. Government began openly using it and insisting that it was not torture, at which time these newspapers obediently ceased describing it that way
Communications

Submission + - What will Windows Phone 7 mean for apps?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: recombu.com has taken an interesting look at what Windows Phone 7 means for apps and what challenges it will face. Will Windows Phone be able to attract consumers and developers, for example, and when the app bubble pops where will it stand? "Microsoft has a plan though; it doesn't want to just offer you the same app experience you get on a myriad of other handsets or a homescreen chockablock with app icons. It's not too keen on you having to use apps one at a time either, manually clicking in and out of each app. The way Microsoft talks, you'd think it was a huge chore to open an app, not a quick press of the screen in the appropriate place. Still, we're all for re-thinking the app, and Microsoft's take has it integrated into your handset, running all the time on your homescreen. This goes beyond push notifications; it's more like a series of interlocking widgets — a system Microsoft is calling 'live tiles'."
Politics

Submission + - Indian Gov threatens BlackBerry, Skype with ban 1

Submitted by gauharjk
gauharjk writes: India's Department of Telecommunications (DOT) has been asked by the government to serve a notice to Skype and Research In Motion (RIM) to ensure that their email and other data services comply with formats that can be read by security and intelligence agencies, or face a ban in India if they do not comply within 15 days. A similar notice is also being sent to Google asking it to provide access to content on Gmail in a readable format.

India has never really grown out of the communist-fascist bureaucratic culture where the government has ultimate power.
The Internet

Submission + - Finland makes broadband a 'legal right' (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Finland has become the first country in the world to make broadband a legal right for every citizen.

From 1 July every Finn will have the right to access to a 1Mbps (megabit per second) broadband connection.

Finland has vowed to connect everyone to a 100Mbps connection by 2015.
Censorship

Submission + - Tunneling Under the Great Firewall? 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I am travelling to China sometime in the near future, and needless to say as a Slashdot reader I am going to require access to the internet. The whole, unadulterated, unfiltered internet. Also needless to say, I am very scared of the government there(my lack of a nickname on this submission being testament to that). I will only be there for a few weeks, and will not be using the computer for a large amount of time there, so I don't want to shell out a significant amount of money to a VPN service. However I also do not want to be hindered by extremely slow speeds such as those provided by the Tor network. I have experience implementing web servers and work fairly often with Linux, however many of my friends who also face the same dilemma don't. So Slashdot, what would be the most cost effective(free is best!) method for me to subvert the Great Firewall during my travels while maintaining sufficient anonymity and enjoying sufficient speed?
Science

Submission + - Design Earthquake Resistant Buildings (architectjaved.com)

Submitted by gauharjk
gauharjk writes: Earthquake Resistant Buildings and Structures can save lives and private property. Earthquakes kill thousands of people every year. Buildings can be made safer for habitation by using earthquake resistant techniques.
Media

Vimeo Also Introduces HTML5 Video Player 369

Posted by timothy from the how-about-set-top-boxes dept.
bonch writes "Following in YouTube's footsteps, Vimeo has now introduced its own beta HTML5 video player, and like YouTube, it uses H.264 and requires Safari, Chrome, or ChromeFrame. The new player doesn't suffer the rebuffering problems of the Flash version when clicking around in the video's timeline, and it also loads faster. HTML5 could finally be gaining some real momentum."
Privacy

Tor Users Urged To Update After Security Breach 161

Posted by timothy from the points-of-failure dept.
An anonymous reader writes "If you use Tor, you're cautioned to update now due to a security breach. In a message on the Tor mailing list dated Jan 20, 2010, Tor developer Roger Dingledine outlines the issue and why you should upgrade to Tor 0.2.1.22 or 0.2.2.7-alpha now: 'In early January we discovered that two of the seven directory authorities were compromised (moria1 and gabelmoo), along with metrics.torproject.org, a new server we'd recently set up to serve metrics data and graphs. The three servers have since been reinstalled with service migrated to other servers.' Tor users should visit the download page and update ASAP."
Cellphones

Nokia To Make GPS Navigation Free On Smartphones 300

Posted by timothy from the las-vegas-effect dept.
mliu writes "In what is sure to be a blow to the already beleaguered stand-alone GPS market, Nokia, the global leader in smartphone market share, has released a fully offline-enabled free GPS navigation and mapping application for its Symbian smartphones. Furthermore, the application also includes Lonely Planet and Michelin guides. Unfortunately, the N900, which is beloved by geeks for its Maemo Linux-based operating system, has not seen any of the navigation love so far. With Google's release of Google Navigation for Android smartphones, and now Nokia doing one better and releasing an offline-enabled navigation application, hopefully this is the start of a trend where this becomes an expected component of any smartphone."

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