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DRM

New Humble Bundle Is Windows Only, DRM Games 553

Posted by samzenpus from the what-the... dept.
jbernardo writes "After all the indie, multi-platform (including 4 for android) and DRM free releases, the latest Humble Bundle release is a polarizing one. It features non-indie games, it is Windows only, and the games are saddled with DRM. There is already a very vocal discussion on the Humble Bundle Google+ thread, but it seems it is selling well."
The Almighty Buck

Legalizing Online Futures Betting 80

Posted by samzenpus from the playing-the-odds dept.
Bennett Haselton writes: "Online political futures betting is in a legal limbo in the United States. But with the lifting of legal sanctions, and with the addition of one simple new feature, online futures betting could not only provide more accurate forecasts of the merits of different candidates, but also provide a tool for quieting partisan blowhards who think the opposing party's candidate is going to drag the country to hell. Let the blowhards bet!" You'll find the rest of Bennett's story below.
Censorship

Zero Errors? Spamhaus Flubs Causing Domain Deletions 170

Posted by timothy from the damn-yankers dept.
Frequent contributor Bennett Haselton writes: After I sent 10 new proxy sites to my (confirmed-opt-in) mailing list, two of them ended up on one of Spamhaus's blacklists, and as a result, all 10 domains were disabled by the domain registrar, so the sites disappeared from the Web. Did you even know this could happen?"
Social Networks

Bring On the Decentralized Social Networking 238

Posted by timothy from the node-distinction dept.
Frequent contributor Bennett Haselton writes: "The distributed-social-networking Diaspora Project recently announced that their software will be released as open source. I don't know if Diaspora specifically will be the Next Big Thing in social networking, but I hope that social networking moves to a decentralized model within the next few years, where anyone can set up and run a hub to administer profiles for themselves and their friends or clients, and where profiles can interact with each other in a distributed fashion instead of on a centralized system like Facebook." Read on for Bennett's thoughts on how that model could work.
Android

Custom Android ROM Developers Get OTA Update Capabilities Like Carriers 50

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
hypnosec writes "A new service dubbed OTA Update Center has been launched that enables Android ROM developers to provide over-the-air (OTA) updates of their ROMs in a centralized and easy fashion. Custom ROM developers had very little at their disposal when it came to providing updates and when any user with such a ROM did want to apply an update, he/she was required to reinstall the new ROM from scratch, which often involved deletion of the backup, installation of the new ROM, and restoration of data. This was a lengthy process and often a deterrent when it came to updating the ROM. Also, the developers were required to have their own infrastructure whereby they would be required to host their own servers and have the required bandwidth to serve scores of downloads. The OTA Update Center changes this and provides a free-to-use service that is easy and noob-friendly to use."
Government

The Google Transparency Project Transparency Project 50

Posted by timothy from the correctly-formatted-theocratic-calls-for-caning dept.
Regular contributor Bennett Haselton writes "As Google releases more data about their compliance with requests from foreign governments, they should clarify their stance on exactly when they will comply with requests to turn over user data to foreign law enforcement." Bennett expands on that thought below; read on for some details of just why that kind of disclosure matters, in making sense of Google's own efforts to provide transparency.
Social Networks

Submission + - Reddit Now Banning Quality News Sites Such as The Atlantic and Business Week

Submitted by
Kindgott
Kindgott writes: "Sites where users can promote stories eventually have to come to terms with the possibility of users gaming the system in order to promote their own sites — whether they generate revenue or contain malicious content.

With that in mind, Reddit implementeda domain blocking system, initially targeting URL shortening services.

Today, Reddit user violentacrez recently posted that "entire high-quality" domains such as The Atlantic and Business Week are subject to a blanket ban.

In light of previous behavior by sites, some users welcome the change, while others are condemn it as censorship.

A subreddit has been created in order to keep track of confirmed blocked domains."

Comment Re:Damn! (Score 1) 1165

by Kindgott (#40315763) Attached to: Blocking Gun Laws With Patents
I guess it's time to find out which handguns are most popularly used for crime and then start a company selling brass catchers for them. And then the government will ban sales of brass catchers.

Comment Slower downloads will stop piracy? (Score 1) 154

by Kindgott (#39150325) Attached to: RapidShare Fighting Piracy By Slowing Download Speeds

Back in the late 90s, I knew people who would leave their modems connected overnight on a dedicated line, with a download manager running, just to be sure they got the latest copy of whatever it was they were after.

Slowing up your downloads is just going to make people take longer to grab something, or they'll busily try to find a way to circumvent your "protection." Or, they'll move on to some other service or method, partially collapsing your business model.
User Journal

Journal Journal: in which i am a noob all over again 17

Journal by CleverNickName

I haven't posted a journal here in almost three years, because I couldn't find the button to start a new entry. ...yeah, it turns out that it's at the bottom of the page.

So... hi, Slashdot. I used to be really active here, but now I mostly lurk and read. I've missed you.

Comment I should be fine. (Score 1) 273

by Kindgott (#37852326) Attached to: In light of the squeeze in hard drive prices ...

I have a 1 year old 2TB drive, a 1TB drive, and two 500GB drives, all SATA. I also have a 750GB external drive. The external isn't as handy as it used to be, only for the fact that my current case has a SATA dock built into the top, and my system supports hot-swapping of hard drives. Unless I need to be sure I can access files on another machine, I can just plug in one of the spare drives as needed.

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