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Science

Submission + - Do Pterosaurs Still Exist on Papua New Guinea? (environmentalgraffiti.com) 2

Phoghat writes: "Eyewitness accounts of animals that resemble fabled pterosaurs have made even serious researchers believe that the animals do exist.
Pterosaurs are ferocious flying dinosaurs thought to have been extinct for 65 million years. However, there is physical evidence of gigantic nesting sites in some of the mountainous cliff areas of Papua New Guinea. What's more the natives there have been reported as being fearful of animals that fit their description and given eyewitness accounts. The animals were described as being large in diameter, with bat-like wings connecting to an elongated beak. There were reports of razor sharp teeth and claws and a lengthy whip-like tail with a split or flange at the end."

Google

Submission + - Google Discontinues On2 Flix Engine Video Encoder (on2.com)

trawg writes: Google have recently discontinued sales of the Flix Engine, the last remnants of the purchase of On2 that they were selling directly to users. On2, developers of the VP8 video codec that formed the basis of their new WebM video format, was bought by Google early in 2010. The Flix Engine was a comprehensive API for Windows and Linux that allowed integration of On2 encoders directly into any software product. While you can still buy some On2 products from another company, it's not clear what effect this will have on Google's ultimate video strategy.
Apple

Submission + - Apple Forces Steve Jobs Action Figure Off eBay (tomsguide.com) 1

Hugh Pickens writes: "Kevin Parrish writes in Tom's Guide that last month, just in time for Christmas holiday gift-giving, M.I.C. Gadget began the manufacture and sale of a Steve Jobs action figure featuring an oversized head, Steve's trademark black shirt/blue jeans outfit, and a new iPhone 4 like a magical world-saving talisman in Jobs' left hand. The action figure, selling for $79.90, came with an Apple logo stand and cartoon balloons for writing custom messages. Soon a warning letter from Apple stated that the figurine violated a California statute prohibiting the use of a person's likeness in a product without prior authorization and sales ceased. But shortly after production stopped, the figurines began to appear on eBay selling for up to $2,500. Now Apple's lawyers have raided the online marketplace, zeroing in on one Canadian eBay seller who had already sold the figurine for $1,125 and eBay has removed other listings, telling sellers that the object for sale "violates a celebrity's right of publicity." Although Steve Jobs fans can stlll purchase magazines featuring Jobs' likeness, the made-for-TV movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley," and a Steve Jobs "Hope" T-Shirt, you may have a long wait to find a Steve Jobs action figure in your stocking."

Submission + - Blizzard gets judgement overturned over WoW bots (mondaq.com) 1

An anonymous reader writes: Ninth Circuit reversed a $6.5 million judgment for Blizzard against MDY Industries saying that making bots is not copyright infringement. The bad news? They did violate the DMCA Section 1201(a)(2) which prohibits trafficking in products that circumvent technologies designed to control access to copyright protected works.
Piracy

MegaUpload Dares RIAA To Sue Them 255

Dangerous_Minds writes "Yesterday, there were reports that the RIAA and MPAA were working with Mastercard to cut off payments to so-called 'rogue-websites' like MegaUpload. Today, a spokesperson from MegaUpload issued a response to the RIAA on ZeroPaid. Bonnie Lam of MegaUpload said, 'the vast majority of our revenue is coming from advertising.' She also said, 'Megaupload is a legitimate business operating within the boundaries of the law. In five years of operation we have not been sued by a single content owner. If the RIAA or MPAA would have legal grounds they would have taken us to court by now. We suggest that they attack us within the legal system and stop labeling us until they have something to show.'"
The Internet

Submission + - Outage Cripples Skype Service (dbune.com)

dbune writes: Ten million users of Skype worldwide were affected by disruption in the free Internet phone service on Wednesday as their calls were cut and they could not log back in. Skype Ltd. confirmed the intermittent outage in their VoIP service but said technicians are restoring the service and voice calls ...

Submission + - Oracle releases VirtualBox 4.0 (oracle.com)

dotancohen writes: Oracle today announced the release of VirtualBox 4.0, only two weeks after the first 4.0 beta. It seems snappy, and has lots of features, despite controversy over which components are open source and which aren't. Oracle seems to be doing all right with their Sun acquisitions!
Piracy

Submission + - MegaUpload Dares RIAA to Sue Them (zeropaid.com)

Dangerous_Minds writes: Yesterday, there were reports that the RIAA and MPAA were working with Mastercard to cut off payments to so-called "rogue-websites" like MegaUpload. Today, a spokesperson from MegaUpload issued a response to the RIAA on ZeroPaid. Bonnie Lam of MegaUpload said, "the vast majority of our revenue is coming from advertising" She also said, "Megaupload is a legitimate business operating within the boundaries of the law. In five years of operation we have not been sued by a single content owner. If the RIAA or MPAA would have legal grounds they would have taken us to court by now. We suggest that they attack us within the legal system and stop labeling us until they have something to show."
Censorship

Spanish Congress Rejects Internet Censorship Law 229

TuringTest writes "A commission of the Spanish Congress has rejected a law that allowed the closure of web sites that provide unauthorized downloads. The government couldn't reach enough support from its allies, not because they opposed the law in principle, but because of the way it was redacted and the lack of negotiation. Recently the Spanish Senate rejected a law on net neutrality. Also the Wikileaks cables disclosed pressure from the USA on the Spanish government to pass a law to reduce Internet sharing of music and media, which is legal in Spain."
Games

Submission + - Brain damage from game violence proved in study (google.se) 2

Xemu writes: A team of brain researchers at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet warns that a newly published compilation of more than one hundred scientific studies — based on over 130,000 individuals — show a strong connection between violent computer games and aggressive behavior and decreased empathy.
Businesses

Submission + - Feds to Adopt 'Cloud First' IT Policy

theodp writes: The White House Thursday announced plans to restructure IT by consolidating federal government data centers and applications, and adopting a so-called 'cloud first' policy. Unveiled by federal CIO Vivek Kundra, the 25 Point Plan calls for cutting 800+ data centers by 2015, as well as shifting work to cloud computing systems. The new 'Cloud First' policy cites the ability of Animoto.com to scale vs. the government's short-lived Cars.gov (Cash for Clunkers), although Google Trends suggests this may be somewhat of an apple-to-oranges comparison for justifying a national IT strategy. As long as we're talking clouds, a tag cloud of the 25 Point Plan underscores that the Feds are counting more on IT Program and Contract Management rather than Computer Science wizardry to deliver 'the productivity improvements that private industry has realized from IT.' Not to be a buzzkill, but those of you celebrating CS Education Week might be advised to consider an MBA if you want a Federal IT career.
Networking

DNSSEC Comes To .Net Zone Today 62

wiredmikey sends news that as of today VeriSign has enabled DNSSEC on the .net zone. This is one milestone in a years-long process of securing the DNS against cache poisoning and other attacks. Next step will be for VeriSign to sign the .com root early next year."Having DNSSEC enabled for .net domains... [is] important as it represents one of the most critical implementations of DNSSEC technology, since .net serves as the underpinning for many critical Internet functions. The largest zone to be DNSSEC enabled to date, .net currently has more than 13 million... domain name registrations worldwide."

Comment Re:Absurdly useless poll (Score 1) 507

Everything has an energy value which is convertible to Wh. 1J is 2.7778×10 ^ -4 Wh. Air dry wood, 20% moisture contains 15x10 ^ 9 J/t. By my calculation thats about 4000kWh. Its rough, but gives an idea of the power usage

Regarding gas, I know from my bills I used around 19000kWh worth (for heating and cooking) last year. Equivalent to just under 5t wood. My electricity usage was 4500kWh

Comment Re:carrot and stick (Score 1) 164

How is 1GB per month enough for anything except a few emails? Here in the real world we use streaming audio and video, download software updates, and buy games on Steam at 10GB a time. Get back to us when that costs less than £100 per month with Andrews & Arnold.

A&A are the sort of company I would have through /. would want to encourage, yet an ignorant and misinformed post that would potentially deter someone for investigating them further gets a +4. Great moderating :/

To reiterate, Iga's post is completely inaccurate. For £18 pcm you get 2GB 0900-1800 Mon-Fri, 100GB to use at all other times. Unused units are carried over. For a home user is at work and therefore not using their connection, this affectively means a 100GB cap. You want 200GB? It's a few extra £ a month.

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