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Submission + - Pledge drive to fund free NVidia drivers

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08, 2007 @03:19AM

An anonymous reader writes: Two months ago, David Nielsen started a pledge drive (http://www.pledgebank.com/nouveaudriver) to raise $10 000 to help speed up development of the nouveau (http://nouveau.freedesktop.org) project, which is an attempt to produce reverse-engineered free drivers for NVidia. Now, with one month left to go before the deadline, the pledge drive is well on its way to success, and may provide an interesting precedent for free software development.

Submission + - Vista Beta Users Get First Taste of DRM

Submitted by

darkonc

on Monday January 08, 2007 @02:09AM

darkonc writes: "Some people testing Microsoft's Windows Vista got an unexpected holiday surprise: their TVs stopped working.... Microsoft blames this on the fact that they only licensed the MPEG2 CODED for RC1 until the end of 2006 (Beta users were told that the software was good until April), but even people with third party decoders can't access their content (both live and stored). This is how "Trusted Computing" is supposed to work. If somebody in Redmond (or elsewhere) decides that you can't use certain content, nothing that you try to do should allow you access — Owning the content, or obtaining the rights by some other path, is no defense.

5 million people downloaded RC1, and some have access to Vista Final or RC2 (100K copies downloaded). The rest will have to wait until the end of January to access their suddenly banned content."

Submission + - Reading a DVD with VLC is illegal in France

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07, 2007 @02:17PM

An anonymous reader writes: Starting December 31st 2006, reading a DVD protected with CSS (as most DVD are) is illegal in France when it is done with software allowing to circumvent the protection, such as VLC or mplayer which can both use the libdvdcss library. This Journal Officiel (where laws and executive orders are published) says that you may be fined 135 (around $180) for doing so. This includes watching any DVD that you have legally purchased.

Submission + - Hemorrhoid Relief Commercial

Submitted by

webinsane

on Tuesday January 02, 2007 @05:44AM

webinsane writes: "Johnny Cash (1932 — 2003) was an influential country song writer and singer from Kingsland, Arkansas, who sang to himself while picking cotton in the fields. His song "Ring of Fire" was refused by his family to be in hemorrhoid-relief commercial. "The song is about the transformative power of love ..."said Cash's daughter, Rosanne. "Love is a burning thing and it makes a fiery ring bound by wild desire," the song goes."

Submission + - Xbox 360 to Run Linux Soon?

Submitted by StarMan on Monday January 01, 2007 @11:55PM

StarMan writes: An anonymous hacker gave a short presentation[youtube video] during the 'Lightning Talks' at the 23rd Chaos Communication Congress in Germany where he suggests Linux will run on the Xbox 360 soon. The masked hacker booted an Xbox 360 with the the King Kong game and after the loading-screen a screen pop-ups showing an Xbox360 logo, MacOS logo, Tux and the words "coming soon ...". A small custom PCB was coming out of one of the sides of his retail console and he was also using an Apple Macbook to perform his hack. It's possible he found an exploit in the shaders of King Kong, a game that has been known for shaders that can be modified (they aren't checked for authenticity or signed). The description of the presentation says a linux kernel is already booting ... this wasn't shown during the presentation however.

Submission + - Apple faces suit over iPod-iTunes link

Submitted by thebear05 on Friday December 29, 2006 @07:59PM

thebear05 writes: As if its options woes weren't trouble enough, Apple Computer Inc. said Friday it is facing several federal lawsuits, including one alleging the company created an illegal monopoly by tying iTunes music and video sales to its market-leading iPod portable players. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061229/ap_on_hi_te/ap ple_lawsuits

Submission + - Judge denies source code in disputed race

Submitted by MrMetlHed on Friday December 29, 2006 @07:36PM

MrMetlHed writes: A judge ruled Friday that congressional aspirant Christine Jennings has no right to examine the programming source code that runs the electronic voting machines at the center of a disputed Southwest Florida congressional race.

Submission + - Council of the EU says: We cannot support Linux

Submitted by

stefon

on Friday December 29, 2006 @05:49PM

stefon writes: "The Council of the EU has a streaming service to watch the meetings. But the streaming service can be only be used by Mac or MS Windows user. This is because they use wmv for the videos. An online petition has been set created to create pressure to convince the EU council to change its serve in a way that its platform independent. More infos about "

Submission + - Wild bird blinding Laser beacon announced

Submitted by

snot.dotted

on Friday December 29, 2006 @05:44PM

snot.dotted writes: "Southampton, UK. City council announced the construction of a Laser Beacon that will cost £249,000 or $487,590. To be constructed with four high powered lasers (5 watts, class 4) that will be visible for 20 miles and the lasers will be constantly running from dusk until midnight. Local astronomers pissed at the light pollution link to local news paper article, City council leaders unaware of diffraction and beam divergence! You can read their proposal here as a pdf Pidgeons and other wild birds likely to be blinded. Apparently a world first. Next, council to attach frickin' lasers to sharks. Dr Evil running for re-election again! more Beacon of the South Stories"

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