ribond - Slashdot User

MP3's Loss, Open Source's Gain 331

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday February 27, 2007 @05:13PM from the chicken-or-the-ogg dept.

nadamsieee refers us to a piece up at Wired on the fallout from Microsoft's recent courtroom loss to Alcatel-Lucent over MP3 patents. From the article: "Alcatel-Lucent isn't the only winner in a federal jury's $1.52 billion patent infringement award against Microsoft this week. Other beneficiaries are the many rivals to the MP3 audio-compression format... Now, with a cloud over the de facto industry standard, companies that rely on MP3 may finally have sufficient motivation to move on. And that raises some tantalizing possibilities, including a real long shot: Open-source, royalty-free formats win."

Christian Group Prepares To Mark Wii as 'Porn Portal' 565

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday February 27, 2007 @04:59PM from the overstating-things-a-bit dept.

Citing the Wii's ability to browse the internet via the Opera browser, a Christian group based out of California is planning on targeting the console with a smear campaign, Kotaku reports. The site has gotten ahold of a leaked press release from the upcoming 'Porn Talk' media event. From the release: "Like many new gaming technologies, the Wii's wireless internet capabilities make it a portal to porno. 'Parents think the computer is the only way for their kids to get porn on the internet. Unfortunately, they are dead wrong,' says Mike Foster, founder of ThePornTalk.com. 'Gaming devices like the Wii and the PSP aren't just for fun games anymore. You're able to surf the net, chat with friends, email, and view porn because of its internet access. Kids know this but parents don't!'"

Submission + - $2.2 million power conservation payoff

Submitted by

bednarz

on Tuesday February 27, 2007 @04:34PM

bednarz writes: "Partners HealthCare says it could save about $2.2 million in electricity costs if IT is able to put thousands of unused PCs to sleep at night, on weekends and at other times of inactivity. The healthcare company is using free tools from the DOE's Energy Star program. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/022707-partn ers-healthcare.html"

Is "Making Available" Copyright Infringement? 320

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday February 27, 2007 @04:30PM from the RIAA-theory dept.

NewYorkCountryLawyer updates us now that the legal issue — is it copyright infringement merely to "make available" a copyrighted work? — has been argued by the attorneys in Elektra v. Barker (on January 26). Whichever way the ruling goes it will have a large impact across the Internet. Appeal seems likely either way. No ruling has issued yet but "a friend" has made the 58-page transcript "available" (PDF here).

Submission + - Why we hate lawyers in IT: Reason No. 1,997

Submitted by jcatcw on Monday February 26, 2007 @06:37PM

jcatcw writes: How many laws affect IT? Steve Duplessie says zillions. Most are about record retention, and they were a boon to the storage industry. The lawyers on the good side put tough laws in place to say, "Thou shalt keep stuff, electronic or other, so that we can see it when we think you're a lying dirtbag." The lawyers on the bad side then started making money, first by trying to show their clients how to skirt the issue, and then by showing them how to comply. But now retention isn't enough. You have to also find the stuff. There are numerous approaches to the problem, but they seem to be lumped into these basic categories: 1. Let someone else deal with it; 2. Categorize and classify things up front; 3. Index stuff in the backup stream; 4. Internal search technologies.

Feed Japan Launches 4th Spy Satellite (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Saturday February 24, 2007 @03:12PM

With the successful launch, the country can monitor activities worldwide and better observe neighboring North Korea's nuclear program. By the Associated Press.

Submission + - The Emotional Side of Security

Submitted by

trevvg

on Saturday February 24, 2007 @03:08PM

trevvg writes: "A recent article on Dark Reading, explains how security experts are realizing that internet security is both "a reality and a feeling"... http://www.affectivedesign.org/archives/65"

Submission + - Zelda Music Reorchestrated with Soundscapes!

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24, 2007 @02:43PM

An anonymous reader writes: I found this website who's goal is to re-orchestrate ALL of the music from the Legend of Zelda, giving them a high quality, orchestral feel. They have over 200 songs completed and are well on their way, and the songs are TOTALLY FREE! Also, this past weekend they released an album called "Soundscapes", a mix of previously released and/or entirely new ZREO songs and add environmental sound effects to them. This adds a whole new atmospheric element to the tracks. It makes you feel like you are actually in the game! Check them out at http://www.zreomusic.com/

Submission + - Americans more approving of terrorism than Muslims

Submitted by

Flo

on Saturday February 24, 2007 @02:27PM

Flo writes: "[Sorry for the double-submission... I forgot the link *blush*] An interesting study shows how misleading common prejudices can be:

[...] 46 percent of Americans think that "bombing and other attacks intentionally aimed at civilians" are "never justified," while 24 percent believe these attacks are "often or sometimes justified."
[...]Do these findings mean that Americans are closet terrorist sympathizers?
Hardly. Yet, far too often, Americans and other Westerners seem willing to draw that conclusion about Muslims.
"

Submission + - Study contradicts RIAA on cause of CD sales drop

Submitted by IBuyManyCd on Saturday February 24, 2007 @01:16PM

IBuyManyCd writes: A new research paper (PDF) published in the Journal of Political Economy contradicts the RIAA claim that illegal downloading is the main reason for the 25% drop in CD sales.
A quick overview of the article is presented on the University of Chicago Press site: Downloads are not the primary reason for the decline in music sales. "Researchers from Harvard and Kansas find that impact of P2P sharing on U.S. music sales is "statistically indistinguishable from zero".
The overview also quotes:
"We match an extensive sample of downloads to U.S. sales for a large number of albums", write Felix Oberholzer-Gee (Harvard University) and Koleman Strumpf (University of Kansas). "While file sharers downloaded billions of files in 2002, the consequences for the industry amounted to no more than 0.7% of sales."
The author compiled data on nearly 50,000 music downloads of popular songs (on pop charts) and across eleven genre from 2 major P2P servers. They then compared these with the same pop chart songs CD sales, "it is striking to see that more than 60% of the songs in our sample are never downloaded".
This underlines what many online users have lived first hand. If an album is good enough, reaching the pop chart, it will gladly be bought by fans.

Submission + - UK gamers charged more for inferior PS3

Submitted by

twofish

on Friday February 23, 2007 @03:14PM

twofish writes: "According to the Daily Telegraph Sony has said today that the European version of PlayStation 3 will play fewer PlayStation 2 games when it launches on March 23 compared with models launched earlier in Japan and America. "The backwards compatibility is not going to be as good as the U.S. and Japan models," a Sony spokesman said. Like Microsoft, Sony seems to not have a working currency converter either and the PS3 will also be £100 more than the US version."

Submission + - eBay hacker keeps busting through site's back door

Submitted by pacopico on Friday February 23, 2007 @03:14PM

pacopico writes: A hacker specializing in eBay cracks has once again managed to masquerade as a company official on the site's message boards, according to this story on The Register. A company spokesman denies that "Vladuz's" repeated assaults on eBay point to a larger problem with the site's security. Of course, eBay two days ago claimed to have found a way to block Vladuz altogether, only to see him pop up again. Is eBay Vladuz the online version of the Exxon Valdez?

Submission + - Superbots Cooperate for Many Feats

Submitted by anthemaniac on Friday February 23, 2007 @03:06PM

anthemaniac writes: Wei-Min Shen at USC has taken a Lego approach to robots and tossed in some intelligence to create "superbots." While each autonomous module is no more talented than a Roomba or even the iDog, one piece can find another and self-assemble. Combined, they can form a wheel, climb a rope, or walk like a human. The videos show various combinations and feats.

Submission + - Blizzard Sues Bot Creator; Seeks Customer Info

Submitted by on Friday February 23, 2007 @03:05PM

An anonymous reader writes: After filing a prayer for relief to continue the selling of his WoWGlider, an automation bot for Blizzard's fanatical World of Warcraft, Michael Donnelly has again found himself in some deep water: Blizzard has retorted demanding WoWGlider be shut down, his URL, and financial compensation, but more interestingly they want all of WoWGlider's sales records. Presumably, Blizzard will cross-reference this with their current user database and ban anyone who bought the program. Furthermore, Blizzard claims that WoWGlider violates copyrights by accessing the game client's RAM space, a process which is also done by every anti-virus program. So why is there no Blizzard vs. Symantec?

Meetings Make You Dumber 207

Posted by Zonk on Friday February 23, 2007 @02:37PM from the not-cumulatively-thank-everything dept.

Maximum Prophet writes "Robert Heinlein once said that the committee was the only life form in the universe with three or more bellies and no brain. MSNBC reports that his statement may have some statistical truth to it. Researchers are finding that meetings are actually bad places to be creative. You're not actually 'dumber' when you're in the meeting, just more likely to lose your creative edge. Studies have now shown that, as collaborative primates, the more often a possibility is mentioned the more likely the group is to go along with it. Individuals placed by themselves were more likely to come up with imaginative alternatives to products, for example."

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