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Space

Illinois Declares Pluto a Planet 512

Posted by timothy from the after-ruling-out-pebble-and-mailing-tube dept.
The Bad Astronomer writes "The legislators in Illinois, always on the lookout for more places to find voters, have passed a resolution declaring Pluto is a planet. I'm not sure what else can be said here, except that — besides overstepping their jurisdiction just a wee bit — they make a couple of scientific howlers in the resolution itself."
Microsoft

Roundup of Microsoft Research At TechFest 2009 123

Posted by kdawson from the thirty-five-cool-things dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica has a very thorough post of some of the technologies that Microsoft researchers showed off at TechFest last week. 'The exact number of projects that were demonstrated at TechFest 2009 is not clear, but here's a quick rundown of about 35 research projects that haven't received much coverage, accompanied by links that will let you further explore if your interest is piqued. Remember that these are concepts and prototypes, not finished products, and they may never end up becoming anything significant.'" While Microsoft has been criticized for squandering a fortune on R&D, there can be no doubt that they are showing off some cool tech here.

Comment Re:Jones Day 1, Slashdot crowd 0 (Score 2, Interesting) 333

by nyet (#26946867) Attached to: Startup Threatened Into Settling Over Hyperlinking

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act does not cover publicly accessible URLs. It never has. Period.

And even if it did, like most amateur, wannabe, condescendingly annoying, psuedo legal eagles, you are confusing "rights" with the law. There are rights that we have that the legistlature and judicial system consistently and repeatedly ignore. To make matters worse, they do it because of ignorant, shortsighted, luddite fools just like you. You disgust me. There is absolutely nothing morally wrong with deeplinking a to a publically available URL.

Don't pretend for a minute that you know more about what is right and wrong than anybody here, let alone assume we are as completely ignorant of the law as you are.
The Courts

Court Reinstates Proof-of-Age Requirement For Nude Ads 267

Posted by timothy from the barely-legal dept.
arbitraryaardvark writes "An Ohio swinger's magazine objects to keeping proof on file that its advertisers are over 18. I reported here in 2007 that the 6th circuit struck down U.S.C. Title 18, Section 2257 as a First Amendment violation. The full 6th circuit has now overturned that ruling. The case might continue to the Supreme Court. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports."

Comment Re:I call Poe's law. (Score 1) 647

by nyet (#26816733) Attached to: WSJ Says Gov't Money Injection Won't Help Broadband

Does it worry you that somebody reading your original post might assume that *you* feel you are Morally Supreme? That you feel you are a Rational Being of Wonder? That you feel that all that oppose you are Stupid and Evil?

Would you be upset if they made those assumptions about you, then told a friend how, when they "met" you, it reinforced their opinion that people that share your opinion are all like that?

You know, considering you are a member of a group of people that consider themselves "open minded" and all.
Security

Hackers Clone Passports In Driveby RFID Heist 251

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-not-exactly dept.
pnorth writes "A hacker has shown how easy it is to clone US passport cards that use RFID by conducting a drive-by test on the streets of San Francisco. Chris Paget, director of research and development at Seattle-based IOActive, used a $250 Motorola RFID reader and an antenna mounted in a car's side window and drove for 20 minutes around San Francisco, with a colleague videoing the demonstration. During the demonstration he picked up the details of two US passport cards. Using the data gleaned it would be relatively simple to make cloned passport cards he said. Paget is best known for having to abandon presenting a paper at the Black Hat security conference in Washington in 2007 after an RFID company threatened him with legal action." Apparently this is a little unfair — he sniffed the data, he didn't actually make a fake passport.
The Courts

Judge Rules WoW Bot Violates DMCA 498

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the bot-having-trouble-climbing-the-slippery-slope dept.
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that Blizzard has added another victory in their campaign against World of Warcraft bots. A federal judge has ruled that not only did the Glider bot break the EULA, it can be classified as a circumvention device under the DMCA. "As we've noted before, Blizzard's legal arguments, which Judge David G. Campbell largely accepted, could have far-reaching and troubling implications for the software industry. Donnelly is not the most sympathetic defendant, and some users may cheer the demise of a software vendor that helps users break the rules of Blizzard's wildly popular role playing game. But the sweeping language of Judge Campbell's decision, combined with his equally troubling decision last summer, creates a lot of new uncertainty for software vendors seeking to enter software markets dominated by entrenched incumbents and achieve interoperability with legacy platforms."
Businesses

Tech Companies That Won't Survive 2009 385

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the in-a-blaze-of-glory dept.
buzzardsbay writes "Fresh off their annual market survey, eWEEK channel folks have compiled the list of tech vendors their readers think will fail, falter, or be sold off in 2009. It's important to note that these aren't the opinions of the magazine or its editors. The list comes from folks who work in IT, mostly technology resellers, who are out in the field selling, installing and maintaining this stuff. If there were ever canaries in the tech coal mine, they'd be these service and solution providers who live and die by the slightest shift in the markets. Some of the companies on this list, like Sun and AMD, are shocking because of their size. Others, like CA and Symantec, not so surprising." What other companies are headed for implosion, or should be if all were right with the universe?

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