twostar - Slashdot User

Submission + - No prohibition against adult content on Blu-ray

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24, 2007 @08:13PM

An anonymous reader writes: In a recent Slashdot story it was reported that "No Blu-ray disk manufacturer would make their disks because Sony doesn't want porn on Blu-ray (just as with Betamax)." Reports now indicate that this is false. "'There's no prohibition against adult content,' Lisa Gephardt, a spokeswoman for Sony Corp. of America...."

Journal Journal: "Street kids raid poverty summit" 1

Journal by Otter on Wednesday January 24, 2007 @07:24PM

A funny story, if the kids don't wind up facing nasty retribution from the police, which they probably will...

You know that "World Social Forum" that runs as an anti-capitalist World Economic Forum? We usually get a story or two about it every year, about how Stallman gave a speech about how free software is good and Microsoft is bad and people who don't say "GNU/Linux" are even worse, and then responded to questions by pretending he doesn't know what "open source" is.

Feed Privacy Board Veils Wiretap Docs (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Wednesday January 24, 2007 @06:12PM

A White House board overseeing privacy and civil liberties says no to a Wired News sunshine request for documents on the government's warrantless wiretapping program. Releasing the information would "not be in the public interest," it claims. In 27B Stroke 6.

Submission + - EPA flush with success over high-tech toilets

Submitted by

WaltonNews

on Wednesday January 24, 2007 @05:27PM

WaltonNews writes: "On January 24, 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued its final specification for high-efficiency toilets (HETs). The new EPA-approved toilets will perform at least 20% more efficiently that older, less efficient toilets. The remaining story appears at: http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/8923/1066/."

Submission + - Switzerland bans the use of GPS units in cars.

Submitted by on Wednesday January 24, 2007 @03:55PM

An anonymous reader writes: If you're traveling with a GPS in your car to Switzerland, be very careful! As of January 10th, the Swiss authorities (ASTRA) have forbid the use of GPS systems in cars. They also banned the selling of car GPS units throughout the country.
The reason is that the software running on these devices reveal the location of traffic radars, through which less people have been fined in the recent years and thus Swiss authorities miss a lot of money. The controversial ban has been created a large commotion inside and outside the country, forcing the authorities to put an official document online [pdf — in Germans], with answers to most frequently asked questions.
GPS devices such as TomTom, Garmin, Mio, Navman, Medion, Route 66, Packard stand Ring, Sony and ViaMichelin are all in the banned list.

Journal Journal: Consumer Reports retracts infant car seat study 2

Journal by peacefinder on Thursday January 18, 2007 @05:53PM

Whoops:

Consumer Reports is retracting its car seat report after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it had found flaws in its side-impact testing methods.

Submission + - Terror suspect to be trialed by coerced testimony

Submitted by on Thursday January 18, 2007 @05:32PM

An anonymous reader writes: From Sydney Morning Herald, it seems that the "US Defence Department has drafted a manual for trying detainees at the Guantanamo Bay jail that would allow terror suspects to be imprisoned, convicted and executed on the basis of hearsay evidence or coerced testimony". Is this the way democracy should work? Isn't it hypocritical?

Submission + - Senate bill S.256 aims to restrict internet radio

Submitted by JAFSlashdotter on Friday January 12, 2007 @08:17PM

JAFSlashdotter writes: If you enjoy MP3 or OGG streams of internet radio, it's time to pay attention. This week US Senators Lamar Alexander, Joseph Biden, Dianne Feinstein, and Lindsey Graham in their collective wisdom have decided to reintroduce the "Platform Equality and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music (PERFORM) Act". This ARS Technica article explains that PERFORM would restrict our rights to make non-commercial recordings under the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, and require satellite and internet broadcasters to use "technology to prevent music theft". That means goodbye to your favorite streaming audio formats, hello DRM. The EFF said pretty much the same when this bill last reared its ugly head in April of 2006. It's too soon to get the text of this year's version (S.256) online, but it likely to resemble last year's S.2644, which is available through Thomas. Last year's bill died in committee, but if at first you don't succeed...

Submission + - Protien in HIV functions as resistor

Submitted by

TwilightXaos

on Friday January 12, 2007 @07:34PM

TwilightXaos writes: "Leor Weinberger and Thomas Shenk, two researchers at Princeton, have discovered a new model for how the HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) enters and exits dormancy. They claim it functions as a resistor, this is in contrast to other types of regulation models found in other viruses and animals. From the abstract:

Here we show that a dissipative feedback resistor, composed of enzymatic interconversion of the transactivator, converts transactivation circuits into excitable systems that generate transient pulses of expression, which decay to zero. We use HIV-1 as a model system and analyze single-cell expression kinetics to explore whether the HIV-1 transactivator of transcription (Tat) uses a resistor to shut off transactivation. The Tat feedback circuit was found to lack bi-stability and Tat self-cooperativity but exhibited a pulse of activity upon transactivation, all in agreement with the feedback resistor model.

The research could lead to an effective treatment of the HIV virus, and has the possibility of increasing understanding of other viruses like herpes.
Additionally hindu.com has a article on the findings."

Journal Journal: "Scientists prepare to move Doomsday Clock forward"

Journal by flaming error on Friday January 12, 2007 @07:21PM

Reuters reports that the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists says conditions are closer to doomsday than the used to be:

When it was created by the magazine's staff in 1947, it was initially set at seven minutes to midnight and has moved 17 times since then.

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