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Charges Dropped In PA Video Taping Arrest 177

Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed has reversed himself completely over the charges against Brian Kelly, arrested for wiretapping after videotaping a police stop. Now let's see if they are good enough to compensate Kelly for the 26 hours he spent in jail and the anguish of the cloud over his future caused by a felony arrest. From the article: "... [DA] Freed said his decision will affect not only Brian Kelly, 18, but also will establish a policy for police departments countywide. 'When police are audio- and video-recording traffic stops with notice to the subjects, similar actions by citizens, even if done in secret, will not result in criminal charges,' Freed said yesterday. 'The law itself might need to be revised.'"
Space

Eta Carinae, Soon To Be a Local Supernova 317

da4 writes "Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy has a great article about Eta Car, a star approx 7,500 light years away from us that's ready to supernova sometime Real Soon Now." Larger versions of the Hubble-Chandra image of Eta Car are available at the Chandra site. Of course when astronomers say it's "about to explode," they really mean it probably exploded 6,500 to 7,500 years ago and we're awaiting the news.
The Internet

Submission + - Musicians Fight For Net Neutrality

Erin Lenseth writes: "Musicians are now fighting for net neutrality,fearing that certain internet providers will soon charge a fee to those who want their websites to have faster loading times. The Rock the Net Campaign, an advocacy group composed of lesser known artists, is now being backed by the Future of Music Coaliation, which is supported by the likes of R.E.M. This begs the question- are ISPs going too far in their quest to generate more profit?"
Real Time Strategy (Games)

Submission + - The World's Most Realistic Virtual Reality Room

Lucas123 writes: "Iowa State University's Virtual Reality Applications Center is completing a $5 million upgrade to its six-sided virtual reality room, which will now sport 100 megapixels of resolution. Besides serious research, like viewing data from as many as 22,000 genes at once and training soldiers in urban combat, the room offers some cool games. The upgrades include a Hewlett-Packard computer cluster featuring 96 graphics processing units, 24 Sony digital projectors, an eight-channel audio system and ultrasonic motion tracking technology."
Data Storage

Submission + - Terabyte-Capacity Optical Disc Demoed

An anonymous reader writes: Various sources report on a technology demo of the 'TeraDisc' by Israeli startup Mempile, where 100 layers of data were recorded and read back on a single optical disc. Recording and readback are achieved by 2-photon absorption, and a DVD-sized, removable, 1 TB-capacity WORM disk is promised in 2010. And that's only with a red laser!

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