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Submission + - Sony Patent To Stop Your Gaming To Try And Sell You Products? (techfleece.com)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "Sony, have a patent that would allow them to stop your gaming in its tracks to try to sell you products.

The patent was filled on 22nd July 2011 and published on 10th November 2011 and would, without a doubt, be the most annoying thing imaginable when it come to immersing yourself into a game. People pay quite a bit of money these days for the latest games, so having those interrupted by dumb advertising would be a game killer. Here’s a more detailed description of how it would be implemented.

Embodiments of the present invention provide an advertisement scheme for use with interactive content, such as for example video games, entertainment software, or any other type of interactive content. In some embodiments, during game play, the game slows down, then stops, and a commercial is played. The user may be given an indication or other warning that a commercial is coming. By way of example, the indication may comprise a slowing down of the game play. This way, when the game slows down, the user knows to get ready for a commercial, the game then stops, and the commercial is played. After the commercial, the game resumes (i.e. starts again). In some embodiments the game may resume by slowly starting again, which allows the user to remember where he or she was in the game.

Abstract:

“A method for use in advertising includes initiating playing of interactive content, suspending playing of the interactive content, displaying an advertisement, and resuming playing of the interactive content. A computer program product includes a medium embodying a computer program for causing a computer to perform these operations, and a system for use in advertising includes a display and a processing system configured to perform these operations.”

Now, the good news is, is that not all patents are forthcoming, but still, what idiot though it would be a good idea?"
Google

Submission + - Google Lifts The Veil On Copyright Takedowns: Reveals Detailed Data On Who Reque (techdirt.com)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "As part of Google's ongoing Transparency Report efforts, today the company has released a whole new section on copyright takedowns, containing a huge amount of information on the many takedown requests Google receives. It focuses specifically on the takedowns for search links, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them add other areas later. As you may recall, we were among those who were victimized by a bogus takedown, and a key post about SOPA that we had written was missing from Google search for about a month.

The new transparency platform lets you dig in and see quite a few details about exactly who is issuing takedowns and what they're removing from search. It's using data since last July (when Google set up an organized web-form, so the data is consistent). It may be a bit surprising, but at the top of the list? Microsoft, who has apparently taken down over 2.5 million URLs from Google's search results. Most of the the others in the top 10 aren't too surprising. There's NBC Universal at number two. The RIAA at number three (representing all its member companies). BPI at number five. Universal Music at number seven. Sony Music at number eight. Warner Music doesn't clock in until number 12.

There's also data on which sites are most frequently targeted, which (not surprisingly) lists out a bunch of torrent search sites and file lockers and such. Don't be surprised to see some try to claim that this is an accurate list of "rogue sites" that Google should block entirely. However, if you look carefully at the data, Google also highlights the percentage of pages on those sites for which they've received takedowns, and the vast majority of them are well below 1%. In other words, no one has complained about well over 99% of the pages on these sites. It seems pretty drastic to suggest that these sites are obviously nothing but evil, when so many of their pages don't seem to receive any complaints at all."
Piracy

Submission + - Italian Court Orders All ISPs To Block KickAssTorrents (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "KickAssTorrents, one of the most popular BitTorrent websites on the Internet today, is facing a total blackout in Italy. Following an investigation by the country’s cybercrime police, an ISP blocking order has now been granted against a site which authorities say is run by criminals generating millions of dollars. The move follows similar blockades against both The Pirate Bay and the now-defunct BTjunkie.

Early this year TorrentFreak published a shortlist of the world’s most popular torrent sites. Leading the pack was of course The Pirate Bay, but in third place came a site that over its relatively short life has been shooting up through the rankings.

Founded in just three years ago in 2009, KickAssTorrents has shown that it’s serious about becoming a leading torrent site player. Of course, that has its drawbacks too.

The site’s increasing profile has caused it to appear in numerous MPAA, RIAA and government reports, in the US and elsewhere. News today reveals that the authorities in Italy have been watching the site for some time.

According to a report coming out of the police department with responsibilities for tackling cybercrime, KickAssTorrents will soon be subjected to a nationwide ISP blockade.

Translated as “Financial Guard”, the Guardia di Finanza (GdF) is a department under Italy’s Minister of Economy and Finance. Part of the Italian Armed Forces, GdF has in recent years been involved in many file-sharing investigations, most recently against KickAssTorrents.

Operation ‘Last Paradise’ has just concluded with the public prosecutor of the Sardinian capital Cagliari granting an “order of inhibition” which requires the country’s ISPs to cease providing access to the site. Similar orders were previously granted against The Pirate Bay and the now-defunct BTjunkie."
Music

Submission + - RIAA Sues Limewire for $72 Trillion (zeropaid.com)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "It may be the biggest example of why people don’t trust alleged damages due to file-sharing in recent times. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is demanding $72 Trillion from the developers of Limewire. No, that is not a typo. The amount is $72 trillion.

One of the popular points being circulated about this is the value of the entire world economy. According to Wikipedia, the economy of the entire world is valued at $61.96 trillion (USD). I’ll say this right off the bat. At this stage, it’s much better to simply sue every one and every living thing on the planet at this point because they may have heard a song not authorized by the RIAA. I can only picture RIAA executives with their pinky fingers pointing to their evil grins when they asked for that sum of money.

The report comes from NME which says:

"In October 2010, Limewire was forced to shut down after a judge in the Federal District Court ruled that its main filesharing functions be disabled, but the RIAA is still actively pursuing its owners for damages.
Given that the combined wealth of the entire planet is around $60 trillion (£38 trillion), the RIAA likely has no hope of securing this in damages, but believe this is what it is owed, reports Computerworld.com.
In the suit, the RIAA says that given that the courts have identified over 11,000 songs as “infringed” material, and, as each song has probably been downloaded thousands of times, it should be compensated for each individual download.
However, the presiding Judge in the case, Judge Wood, disagrees and has said that the music industry is entitled only to a “single statutory damage award from Defendants per work infringed” for several reasons, including one that suggests that any other decision could lead to “absurd results”.

I think its pretty safe to say that just about no one is buying the number the RIAA presented here. Even if you are for suing every individual file-sharer on the planet, I bet you are scratching your head at how the RIAA came up with the value of $72 trillion. It makes zero sense to sue someone for more then the value of the entire planet.
What’s more is that this is the equivalent to suing every car manufacturer because the vehicles they produced and sold were involved in fatal crashes. It’s not that the cars were defective in every instance, it’s just that they produced the cars that were involved in the first place. That is why suing the creators of the file-sharing software also makes absolutely no sense in my mind. The only real message this is sending out to any innovators is that innovation – especially if or when it involves multimedia of any kind – is not welcome in America. If you create the next greatest thing, you better hope you do not live in America because the legacy corporations will hunt you down and make sure you spend the rest of your life in poverty because you had the audacity to invent something that may have upended their traditional business models.
Either way, I think asking for $72 trillion in damages was completely stupid."
Piracy

Submission + - Rickroll Meme Destroyed By Copyright Takedown (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "It’s possibly one of the most popular ever memes in the history of the Internet but today it lies in tatters. The Rickroll phenomenon, whereby people are promised one thing but given “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley instead, has been ended by a copyright takedown request by AVG Technologies. It’s a brave move – Rickrolling was invented by 4chan and who knows how they’re going to react.

Anyone who has spent much time online, especially on Internet message boards of any kind, will be aware of Rickrolling.

It’s an incredibly simple concept. The meme is based on a bait and switch, whereby someone posts a hyperlink which allegedly provides content relevant to the current discussion, but in fact leads to the 1987 Rick Astley song “Never Gonna Give You Up” instead.

People who follow these links and end up viewing the song/video are said to have been “Rickrolled” and over the years millions of people have been fooled into doing so. However, those falling into the trap today are being met with something not nearly as entertaining and, if it’s even possible, something that is even more annoying.

Due to a copyright complaint, the original Rickroll video has been removed from YouTube."
Databases

Submission + - New MinuteSort Record Set by Microsoft Research (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: A team from Microsoft Research has taken the lead in the MinuteSort data sorting test using a specially-devised technology, Flat DataCenter Storage. The figures are impressive — 1401 gigabytes in the 60 seconds, using 1033 disks across 250 machines. This is not only three times as much as the previous record, but also, uses only one sixth of the hardware resources, according to a blog post about the test from Microsoft. One thing that’s interesting about the success is the technology used. While solutions such as Hadoop and MapReduce are traditionally used for working with large data sets, Microsoft Research created its own technology called the “Flat Datacenter Storage,” or FDS for short. This isn’t just academic research, of course. The team from Microsoft Research has already been working with the Bing team to help Bing accelerate its search results, and there are plans to use it in other Microsoft technologies.
Google

Submission + - Google to Warn of DNSChanger Infections (krebsonsecurity.com)

Submitted by tsu doh nimh
tsu doh nimh writes: Google plans today to begin warning Internet users if their computers show telltale signs of being infected with the DNSChanger Trojan. The company estimates that more than 500,000 systems remain infected with the malware, despite a looming deadline that threatens to quarantine the sick computers from the rest of the Internet. The company said the warning will appear only when a user with an infected system visits a Google search results property (google.com, google.co.uk, etc.), and will include the message, “Your computer appears to be infected.” Google security engineer Damian Menscher said the company expects to notify approximately a half-million users in the first week of the notices.

Submission + - 123-reg Outage takes down 3 million domains

Submitted by actiondan
actiondan writes: Problems with the 123-reg DNS servers have taken down over 3 million domains. Customers are not happy and are venting on Twitter. This kind of thing always makes me think that the DNS system is surprisingly fragile considering how important it is.
Power

Submission + - Police: Group Staples Roommate's Lips Shut, Tortures Him With Power Tool (cbslocal.com)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "A group of six is behind bars after police say they bound their 41-year-old roommate’s feet with tape, stapled his lips shut, and spent the night torturing him with a small power tool in their Utah home near Salt Lake City.

Police believe the suspects were suspicious about their new roommate, who told authorities he’d moved into the house in Magna a week and a half earlier and had agreed to remodel the basement in exchange for rent.

“One of the suspect’s claims over the last several weeks different people have pulled a gun on him in the street,” Unified Police Lt. Justin Hoyal said. “They believe (the victim) was responsible for it.”

Hoyal says six men and women held the roommate at gunpoint in their home starting late Saturday or early Sunday. They handcuffed him, put staples in his ears and chest, and used a Dremel tool to cut him, according to jail reports.

Police said the roommates struck him multiple times with objects including a crutch, a keyboard, a laptop and the butt of a shotgun.

“All night they tortured him,” Hoyal said.

The group decided at about 4 a.m. Sunday that the roommate might not be responsible for the threats, Hoyal said. They released the man, who reportedly fled to his sister’s house and was taken to a hospital.

Six people were booked into the Salt Lake County Jail on charges of aggravated kidnapping, aggravated assault and obstruction of justice.

Records showed all of the suspects remained there Tuesday morning. It’s unclear whether they have attorneys.

The six suspects are Jennifer Moses, 30; Lee Carl Moses, 26; David Masters, 55; Paula Masters, 43; Brandon Haggard, 20; and Tracy Jordan, 45.

Magna is about 15 miles from Salt Lake City."
Censorship

Submission + - As UK Government Considers Opt-Out Porn Censorship, Report Already Finds Overblo (techdirt.com)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "A few weeks ago, we noted the UK government was considering plans to bring in an opt-out form of censorship, in what would amount to a kind of porn license, and that such an approach runs the risk of blocking a far wider range of materials. Now the Open Rights Group (ORG) has released a report that shows the "child protection filters" on UK mobile Internet networks are already overblocking sites:
It shows how systems designed to help parents manage their childrens' access to the Internet can actually affect many more users than intended and block many more sites than they should. It reveals widespread overblocking, problems with transparency and difficulties correcting mistakes.
The report and an update show that sites affected are found in the realms of digital rights (La Quadrature du Net and the Tor Project), technology (GigaOM, London Ruby User Group and the start-up organization Coadec), lifestyle, community and politics.
As the ORG report highlights, this kind of overblocking does not augur well for any UK government attempts to widen filtering to include fixed-line access:
If they follow a similar blueprint of ISP level filtering as mobile operators, all the problems we have highlighted would be reproduced at a larger scale. For example, most fixed-line connections are shared by a number of people using a variety of devices. Implementing filtering in that situation would require a range of approaches from whitelisting for young children to censorship-free connections for adults.
What's rather depressing is that news that overblocking is already taking place is no surprise: it's simply inevitable when this kind of network-level approach is taken. It underlines again why filtering has to be implemented locally:
we hope that if the government does pursue such a policy it will be flexible, concentrate on users and devices rather than networks, allow the tools to be properly described as "parental controls" and above all avoid turning on blocking by default.
Despite the mounting evidence of overblocking on mobile networks, it's not clear if any of those sensible suggestions will be implemented when it comes to fixed-line access — details of the proposed UK legislation have yet to be announced."
Facebook

Submission + - Facebook Tests Timeline Redesign (pcworld.com)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "The new Timeline design, spotted by TPM Livewire, condenses the biographical information at the top of the page, so it's nested within the user's banner image instead of appearing below.

Links to the user's friends list, photos, locations, and Likes are tucked neatly underneath the banner, next the user's profile picture. Alongside those links, a new button called “Summary” leads to a list of major life events.

“We can confirm this is a small test, but don’t have anything further to share at this time,” a Facebook representative told PCWorld in a statement.

What the current Facebook Timeline looks like.Facebook introduced Timelines last September as a replacement for the site's existing profile pages. Unlike the old profiles, users can add events to any point in their Timelines, even pre-Facebook, so that the page tells an entire life story. Facebook began rolling out Timeline to all users in January."
Medicine

Submission + - Pancreatic Cancer Vaccine Shows Promise in Human Trials (usnews.com)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "The results of a new clinical trial testing the success of a vaccine that targets pancreatic cancer is giving researchers hope that the treatment might be ready for wide distribution within the next couple years.

During a Phase II trial, 62 percent of patients who used the newly-developed vaccine in combination with traditional treatments were cancer free for at least a year. The year-long survival rate was 86 percent, according to Jeffrey Hardacre, a doctor at the University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio and lead author of the study.

[Universal Flu Vaccine Could Be Available by 2013]

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly forms of the disease, with a long-term survival rate of just 4 percent. The disease has been estimated to cause about 6 percent of cancer deaths in the United States. Over the past several years, actor Patrick Swayze and Apple CEO Steve Jobs have died from the disease.

"I don't think it's going to be a cure for pancreatic cancer, but it could significantly prolong a patient's survival," Hardacre says. "We're attacking pancreatic cancer from multiple vantage points."

Unlike preventative vaccines, the pancreatic cancer vaccine is given to patients after they have already been diagnosed with the disease. The vaccine is made up of two types of human pancreatic cancer cells, which the patient's body recognizes as foreign, abnormal cells. "Theoretically, this primes a patient's immune system into trying to fight his or her own pancreatic cancer," Hardacre says.

The team has been working on the vaccine for several years and has already started Phase III trials—the last set of trials before a drug is approved for general use, something Hardacre says could happen within the next several years.

[Diabetes Drug Might Cut Pancreatic Cancer Risk]

He says the Phase II test proved that the vaccine is "very safe" in humans and results were positive enough to "prompt a significant investment of money and time for a Phase III trial that will give us a definitive answer."

Pancreatic cancer is so deadly because it is generally hard to detect and, in many cases, has already spread by the time it's diagnosed. It's also notoriously hard to treat with chemotherapy and radiation therapies.

Researchers are looking into using similar vaccines to treat melanoma and lung cancer.

"[Cancer vaccines] is a field that's a little bit in its infancy," Hardacre says. "But people are increasingly recognizing that our immune system may be our friend in fighting these cancers.""
Privacy

Submission + - New York Proposing Legislation To Ban Anonymous Speech Websites (arstechnica.com) 2

Submitted by
Fluffeh
Fluffeh writes: "Republican Assemblyman Jim Conte "[this] turns the spotlight on cyberbullies by forcing them to reveal their identity." and Republican Sen. Thomas O’Mara "[this will] help lend some accountability to the Internet age." are sponsoring a bill that would ban any New York-based websites from allowing comments (or well, anything) to be posted unless the person posting it attaches their name to it. But it goes further to say New York-based websites, such as blogs and newspapers, to “remove any comments posted on his or her website by an anonymous poster unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post.”"
The Internet

Submission + - How We Stopped SOPA (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "Great video

After the historic protests in January SOPA and PIPA were ‘shelved’.

In a keynote speech at Freedom 2 Connect, Demand Progress founder Aaron Swartz looks back at what happened.

Swartz explains how SOPA was effectively stopped, and why this was so crucially important.

The battle over the Internet"

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