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The Internet

Submission + - TorrentSpy's RAM data now considered as evidence (com.com)

Submitted by AncientPC
AncientPC writes: This past Friday TorrentSpy was ordered to start tracking visitors (/. discussion). Possibly setting a new legal precedent, TorrentSpy is now required to track visitor info that resides in RAM to turn over as legal evidence.

The courts have for the first time found that the electronic trail briefly left in a computer server's Random Access Memory (RAM) by each visitor to a site is "stored information," and must be turned over as evidence during litigation, according to documents obtained by CNET News.com.

...

This may be the first time that anyone has argued that information within RAM is electronically stored information and therefore subject to the rules of evidence, Chooljian said according to court records. Up to now, many Web sites that promised users anonymity, such as TorrentSpy, believed they need only to switch off their servers' logging function to avoid storing user data.

Should Chooljian's order stand, the decision could force Web sites to rethink privacy precautions.

Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - Science in virtual worlds (rigb.org)

Submitted by
Jonathan
Jonathan writes: "I work for the Royal Institution in London, and we're organising a free talk at the Apple Store next week on the ways science is moving into virtual worlds like Second Life. Scientists use it to meet each other, but also to demonstrate things you can't do in real life — like walk through a four-dimensional house. Social scientists also study the relationships that people have in virtual worlds, figuring out how coherant social networks form when people are semi-anonymous and potentially thousands of miles away from one another. The speakers who'll be there all write about what they're doing in virtual worlds: Dave Taylor, from the National Physical Laboratory, runs the Spaceflight Museum in SL and also the SciLands, the place in SL where loads of scientific organisations are opening outlets. Aleks Krotoski is a columnist for the Guardian and a PhD student at the University of Surrey, working on social networks in virtual worlds, and Jo Scott co-ordinates the science journal Nature's island in SL. She blogs on Nature's emerging web technology blog, Nascent."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Infosys goes for 'bonded-labour'! (rediff.com)

Submitted by Infocison
Infocison writes: IT outsourcing giant Infosys is having all its employees sign a non-compete clause which states that even after the employee quits the company, he/ she cannot work for any of Infosys' competitors. In fact, the clause allegedly lists by name the top five rival companies — TCS, Accenture, IBM , Cognizant and Wipro. click here for full story.
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Full Moon correlated with crime rate

Submitted by Tsalg
Tsalg writes: In Brighton they have found a correlation between the crime rate and the full Moon. As a result, more cops in the street at that time. However a study of 1998 in the '"Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry" showed no correlation with the full Moon and human behaviour at all...
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Wireless networks self-nterference hits bandwidth

Submitted by RockDoctor
RockDoctor writes: In what may come as an unwelcome shock to people at the "cutting edge" of kewl technology (also known as the "bleeding edge", for reasons that will become obvious), Network Computing is carrying a report on the problems of interference between overlapping wireless networks. It came as no surprise to me to discover that (FTFA) a wireless manufacturer who I had never heard of suffered a 50% degradation in performance when working overlapped with a wireless network from market leader Cisco. It also came as no surprise to hear that the performance of the market leader [quote]cratered[quote]. I don't know the ins and outs of the technical aspects of bandwidth contention algorithms, or if one or other contender is adhering to or deviating from the standards. But since I ran the apartment with CAT5 cable about 5 years ago, I can't say that I particularly care either. Certainly, this degree of clashing and conflict between different hardware and software vendors is no surprise. Wireless may have benefits in some circumstances, but it's certainly not the universal solution some vendors would have customers think.
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - London Olympic Mascot Can Trigger Epileptic Fits

Submitted by Oxygen99
Oxygen99 writes: Ok. It may not be funny for epileptics, but it is undoubtedly amusing for the many people upset by the new logo for the 2012 London Olympics. Research by Professor Graham Harding of Cambridge Research Systems, and expert in photosensitive epilepsy, has shown that animations of the image, intended to be broadcast around the world to a television audience of billions, fails the threshold test for triggering seizures in epileptics. The logo cost £400,000 (Or over three quarters of a million US Dollars) and is the subject of intense criticism, being said to resemble both Hitler's SS logo, as well as a certain yellow, well-known cartoon character from Springfield performing an explicit sex act.
Programming

Submission + - Intel updates compilers for multicore CPUs (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Threaded
Threaded writes: With multicore CPUs becoming the norm, Intel has announced major updates to its C++ and Fortran tools. The new compilers are Intel's first that are capable of doing thread-level optimization and auto-vectorization simultaneiously in a single pass. 'On the data parallelism side, the Intel C++ Compiler and Fortran Professional Editions both sport improved auto-vectorization features that can target Intel's new SSE4 extensions. For thread-level parallelism, the compilers support the use of Intel's Thread Building Blocks for automatic thread-level optimization that takes place simultaneously with auto-vectorization... Intel is encouraging the widespread use of its Intel Threading Tools as an interface to its multicore processors. As the company raises the core count with each generation of new products, it will get harder and harder for programmers to manage the complexity associated with all of that available parallelism. So the Thread Building Blocks are Intel's attempt to insert a stable layer of abstraction between the programmer and the processor so that code scales less painfully with the number of cores.'

The 10 "Inconvienient Truths" of File Sharing 587

Posted by Zonk from the how-the-burn-turns dept.
54mc writes "The IFPI, an international recording industry organization, has released a list of Ten "Inconvenient Truths" of file sharing. Though the group has a vested interest, it's still an interesting read as it tears apart some of the most common arguments in favor of file sharing. Ars Technica follows up with a more thorough explanation of some of the points. 'Point five is an attempt to turn the "innovation" argument on its head. For years, pundits outside the music industry have accused labels of pandering to teens through boy bands and "manufactured" celebrities instead of being concerned with finding, producing, and releasing art. The IFPI suggests that the labels could (and would) be doing exactly that if file-swapping went away. And then there's point seven, which isn't an "inconvenient truth" at all but more of a rant against those who prefer giving copyright holders less than absolute control over reproduction rights. An "anti-copyright movement" does exist, but most of the critical voices in the debate recognize the value of copyright--and actually produce copyrighted works themselves (Lawrence Lessig, etc.).'"
Television

Submission + - Watching my neighbors watch on-demand television. (slate.com)

Submitted by
Josh Levin, Slate Magazine
Josh Levin, Slate Magazine writes: "I have a magical box that allows me to watch other people watch TV — their movies, their sports, their cartoons, and their hour-long procedural dramas. And sometimes, usually around 11:30 on Friday nights, their soft-core pornography. ... I solved the mystery by consulting online message boards. At tech-y sites like AVS Forum, other voyeurs described their adventures in freeloading. Apparently, I was intercepting video-on-demand channels through the power of my Samsung's QAM tuner."

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