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Music

RIAA Claims Ownership of All Artist Royalties For Internet Radio 458

Posted by Zonk from the isn't-that-called-stealing dept.
ISurfTooMuch writes "With the furor over the impending rate hike for Internet radio stations, wouldn't a good solution be for streaming internet stations to simply not play RIAA-affiliated labels' music and focus on independent artists? Sounds good, except that the RIAA's affiliate organization SoundExchange claims it has the right to collect royalties for any artist, no matter if they have signed with an RIAA label or not. 'SoundExchange (the RIAA) considers any digital performance of a song as falling under their compulsory license. If any artist records a song, SoundExchange has the right to collect royalties for its performance on Internet radio. Artists can offer to download their music for free, but they cannot offer their songs to Internet radio for free ... So how it works is that SoundExchange collects money through compulsory royalties from Webcasters and holds onto the money. If a label or artist wants their share of the money, they must become a member of SoundExchange and pay a fee to collect their royalties.'"

The World's Longest Carbon Nanotube 142

Posted by Zonk from the woot-nanohair-different-color-every-week dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "As you probably know, carbon nanotubes have very interesting mechanical, electrical and optical properties. The problem, currently, is that they're too small (relatively speaking) to be of much use. Now, researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have developed a process to build extremely long aligned carbon nanotube arrays. They've been able to produce 18-mm-long carbon nanotubes which might be spun into nanofibers. Such electrically conductive fibers could one day replace copper wires. The researchers say their nanofibers could be used for applications such as nanomedicine, aerospace and electronics."
The Almighty Buck

Is Commercialization Killing Open Source? 162

Posted by Zonk from the argh-i've-got-a-quarter-in-my-eye dept.
An anonymous reader writes "IBM, Sun, Novell, and Red Hat all have a very significant open source element to their businesses. In addition to these juggernauts, there is growing investment in various open source models. Will money flowing into open source destroy its roots? Mark Hinkle just posted an editorial asking the questions Is Commercialization Killing Open Source? in which he comments on 'opensville' and gives some actual investment data, and a lot of insight into the growing trend in 'open source commercialization'. Is there such a thing as 'too much money' when it comes to developing software?"
The Courts

RIAA Security Expert's Quest For Reliability 170

Posted by Zonk from the is-he-who-he-says-he-is dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In the ongoing case of UMG v. Lindor, Ms. Lindor has now moved to exclude the trial testimony of the RIAA's 'expert' witness, Dr. Doug Jacobson. Jacobson is the CTO and co-founder of Palisade Systems, Inc, and a teacher of internet security at Iowa State, but in his February 23rd deposition testimony she argues he failed to meet the reliability standards prescribed by Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Federal Rule of Evidence 702. The Groklaw and Slashdot communities participated in both the preparation of the deposition questions, and the vetting of the witness's responses."
It's funny. Laugh.

OS X Vs. Vista — In Spandex 302

Posted by Zonk from the sounds-like-a-normal-weekend-to-me dept.
An anonymous reader writes "CNET UK compares Vista Vs. Apple OS X in a Romeo and Juliet, spandex-wearing, Shakespearean English style. Two guys dress up as their favorite operating system and fight with swords, guns, and fists, while a third guy, dressed as a woman, awaits the winner. 'Usability - Act 3, Scene 2: Swords clash, sparks fly and men grunt, but the showdown ends in stalemate ... [Vista] has a far better user interface than XP -- the file and application search facility is vastly improved and the cascading Start menu has been banished, but it only takes a few moments of use to discover pointless idiosyncrasies. Microsoft constantly reminds us of how great Flip 3D is, but this feature doesn't help us find the right application window much faster than Alt-Tab did. It's very time consuming when you have many application windows to flip through, and it's in no way as efficient as OS X's Exposé feature ... We're calling this one a draw. They're just as good as each other, and in some cases just as bad -- a pox upon both your houses! Score: Mac OS X - 2, Windows Vista - 2'"
Google

Google Deletes Rogue Ads, Dangers Persist 63

Posted by Zonk from the out-out-rogue-ads dept.
An anonymous reader writes passed us a link to a PC World article about attempts by Google to curb malicious ads via their popular service. The article is somewhat bleak, though, because researchers see the fix as nothing more than temporary. "'Search engines are just too easy a target for bad guys,' says Roger Thompson of Exploit Security Labs. On April 25, Exploit Prevention Labs reported that malware distributors were using advertisements placed via Google's automated AdWords system to infect unsuspecting end-users with spyware designed to capture bank login user names and passwords."
Biotech

Mouse Brain Simulated Via Computer 268

Posted by Zonk from the i-have-some-business-in-nevada-see-you-on-the-net dept.
Mordok-DestroyerOfWo writes "Researchers from the IBM Almaden research lab and the University of Nevada have created a simulation of half a mouse brain on the BlueGene L supercomputer. 'Half a real mouse brain is thought to have about eight million neurons each one of which can have up to 8,000 synapses, or connections, with other nerve fibres. Modelling such a system, the trio wrote, puts "tremendous constraints on computation, communication and memory capacity of any computing platform."' Although there's more to creating a mind than setting up the infrastructure, does this mean that we may see a system for human mental storage within our lifetimes?"
Space

The Solar Oxygen Crisis 158

Posted by CowboyNeal from the clearing-the-air dept.
Astrophysicist writes "The Astrophysical Journal this week published an article about the abundance of oxygen in the Sun. Oxygen is the third most abundant atom in the universe, behind hydrogen and helium. Most of the hydrogen and helium was formed in the Big Bang, which means that oxygen is the element most frequently produced by nuclear fusion reactions in the interior of the stars. The solar abundance of oxygen, which is key in astrophysics because of its use as a calibration reference for other objects, was thought to be well established since the 80s. However, recent evidence indicates that it has been overestimated by almost a factor of two. A revision of the solar oxygen abundance would have a cascading effect on other important elements, such as carbon, nitrogen and neon, whose abundance is only known relative to that of oxygen. In addition to the impact on the chemical composition of many stars, models of solar interior may require some reworking in order to be consistent with the new data."
The Almighty Buck

Price Optimization Software Big in Retail Business 121

Posted by CowboyNeal from the milking-the-consumer dept.
prostoalex writes "Even if you spent only a single day in an economics class, you're probably familiar with a concept of supply and demand. The Associated Press is running an article on retailers employing mathematical models for price optimization, where some products are priced higher to generate higher margins, and some are discounted to generate larger volumes even at the expense of per-product margins. DemandTec, Oracle and SAP are some of the companies producing those mathematical models for retailers around the country, with AP listing some of the pricing optimizations employed currently."
The Internet

Utah Rethinking Anti-Keyword Advertising Law 22

Posted by CowboyNeal from the come-undone dept.
Eric Goldman writes "Slashdot previously reported on Utah's recent law banning trademark-triggered keyword advertising. This week, a group of technology executives met with Utah legislators to discuss the law, and it looks like the legislature is rethinking its position. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, 'Legislative leaders are looking to tweak a troublesome trademark protection program rather than defend it in court, after an unprecedented meeting with Internet power brokers who would prefer the new registry be scrapped.'"
Television

NBC Believes They Own Political Discourse 259

Posted by Zonk from the they-the-people dept.
PoliSciASU writes "MSNBC has established draconian rules regarding the use of the Presidential Primary Debates on the internet. Some examples: '5. No excerpts may be aired after 8:30 pm on Saturday, May 26th. Excerpts may not be archived. Any further use of excerpts is by express permission of MSNBC only. 6. All debate excerpts must be taped directly from MSNBC's cablecast or obtained directly from MSNBC and may not be obtained from other sources, such as satellite or other forms of transmission. No portions of the live event not aired by MSNBC may be used.' Kevin Bondelli talks about why this is 'shameful and wrong'. Voters are missing out on the ability to actually have an engaged conversation about the candidates and their debate performances because of NBC's greed." Alexander Wolfe at InformationWeek and Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine share similar sentiments, and discuss the matter in different ways.
Communications

New Japanese Mobile Phones Detect Motion 67

Posted by Zonk from the virtual-/wave dept.
GreenTea writes "Some of the latest mobile phones in Japan come with motion sensors that let users detect motion or play action games like those on the Nintendo Wii console. The D904i from NTT DoCoMo, Japan's top mobile carrier, contains a tiny motion sensor that detects shaking and tilting, company spokesman Nobuyuki Hatanaka said. 'The software supports three main types of motion: shake, rock and roll. Shake can be used for actions such as rolling dice and shuffling MP3 decks. Rock interprets right, left, up and down gestures to generate traditional cursor-style user input commands. Roll offers joystick control by responding to tilting motions used in navigating games, maps or Web pages.'"
PC Games (Games)

Blizzard Confirms New Product, May Be Starcraft 2 229

Posted by Zonk from the new-is-always-good dept.
darkhitman writes "According to a Kotaku post yesterday, Blizzard has confirmed that they'll announce a new product at their World Wide Invitation in Korea next month. The statement issued by Blizzard verified that they 'do intend to announce a new product [...] next month" and "plan to revisit [Starcraft] at some point in the future,' but did not confirm the rumor that the new game would be Starcraft 2 — but we can certainly hope."
Space

Could Black Holes Be Portals to Other Universes? 277

Posted by Zonk from the oh-sliders-you've-taught-us-so-much dept.
David Shiga writes "Astronomers have identified many objects out there that they think are black holes. But could they be portals to other universes called wormholes, instead? According to a new study by a pair of physicists, we wouldn't be able to tell the difference. They have discovered that wormholes with the right shape would look identical to black holes from the outside. But while a trip into a black hole would mean certain death, a wormhole might spit you out into a parallel universe with its own stars and planets. Exotic effects from quantum physics might produce wormholes naturally from collapsing stars, one of the physicist says, and they might even be produced in future particle accelerator experiments."
Education

Student Attempting To Improve School Security Suspended 282

Posted by Zonk from the no-good-deed-goes-unpunished dept.
TA_TA_BOX writes "The University of Portland has handed a one-year suspension to an engineering major after he designed a program to bypass the Cisco Clean Access (CCA). According to the University of Portland's Vice President of Information Systems, the purpose of the CCA is to evaluate whether the computers are compliant with current security policies (i.e., anti-virus software, Windows Updates and Patches, etc.). Essentially the student wrote a program that could fool the CCA to think that the computers operating system and anti-virus were fully patched and up to date. 'In the design of his computer program, Maass looked at the functions CCA provides and identified vulnerabilities where it could be bypassed. He wrote a program that emulated the same functions as CCA and eliminated some security issues. He says that the method he chose is "one of six that I came up with." Maass says his intent was not malicious. Rather, the sophomore says he was examining vulnerabilities so that they could be fixed. "I was planning on going to Cisco with the vulnerability this summer," Maass says. '"

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