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Rupert Murdoch Claims To Own the 'Sky' In 'Skype' 186

Posted by samzenpus from the mine-now-I-take-it dept.
Crudely_Indecent writes "Not content to own just news stories, Rupert Murdoch is now going after individual words! His BSkyB is fighting a legal battle with Skype, claiming that it owns the 'Sky' in 'Skype.' From the article: 'A spokesman for Sky confirmed that the company has been involved in a "five-year dispute with Skype" over trademark applications filed by the telecomms company. These are, the spokesman added: "including, but not limited to, television-related goods and services."'"
First Person Shooters (Games)

Duke Nukem Forever Not Dead? (Yes, This Again) 195

Posted by Soulskill from the you-didn't-think-it-was-over-did-you? dept.
kaychoro writes "There may be hope for Duke Nukem Forever (again). 'Jon St. John, better known as the voice of Duke Nukem, said some interesting words during a panel discussion at the Music and Games Festival (MAGFest) that took place January 1 – 4 in Alexandria, Virginia, according to Pixel Enemy. Answering a question from the crowd regarding DNF, St. John said: "... let me go ahead and tell you right now that I'm not allowed to talk about Duke Nukem Forever. No, no, don't be disappointed, read between the lines — why am I not allowed to talk about it?"'"
Books

Hearst Launching Kindle Competitor and Platform "By Publishers, For Publishers" 155

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the thinking-bigger-picture dept.
The Hearst Corporation has announced their intention to launch an e-reader competitor to Amazon's Kindle and a supporting store and platform that is much more "publisher friendly." More details are available form their official press release this morning. "Launching in 2010, Skiff provides a complete e-reading solution that includes the Skiff Service platform, Skiff Store and Skiff-enabled devices. Skiff will sell and distribute newspapers, magazines, books, blogs and other content. Skiff gives periodical publishers tools to maintain their distinct visual identities, build and extend relationships with subscribers, and deliver dynamic content and advertising to a range of dedicated e-readers and multipurpose devices."
Idle

Canadian Blood Services Promotes Pseudoscience 219

Posted by samzenpus from the type-A-negative-personality dept.
trianglecat writes "The not-for-profit agency Canadian Blood Services has a section of their website based on the Japanese cultural belief of ketsueki-gata, which claims that a person's blood group determines or predicts their personality type. Disappointing for a self-proclaimed 'science-based' organization. The Ottawa Skeptics, based in the nation's capital, appear to be taking some action."

Comment Re:It's fairly obvious why they are so successful. (Score 1) 416

by Arkine (#29417251) Attached to: Netbooks Have a Huge Impact On the PC Industry

Hmm, seems to work fine for me. Guess my Atom proc is special or something.

Same here. I watch Hulu and Youtube (high-res glitches a little) videos with no problems in Ubuntu with my Eee 901 (Atom N270). Upgraded my RAM to 2gb and have Firefox running off the RAM disk though so that might help things a little. The system is fast enough I can even play American McGee's Alice in Wine with no slowdowns or glitching. The only limitations and problems I've ever had with my Eee have to do with the small screen size (1024x600). The screen is a little too cramped to edit photos or create graphics on. For a machine I got to type documents and code on I've been constantly impressed with its capabilities.
Books

New Hitchhiker's Guide Book "Not Very Funny" 410

Posted by timothy from the trying-to-meet-a-high-standard dept.
daria42 writes "An early review of part of the Eoin Colfer-penned sequel to Douglas Adams's Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy series has panned the book as not being very funny. If you read Hitchhiker to have a good laugh, maybe you're going to be disappointed," wrote Nicolas Botti, on his Douglas Adams fan site earlier this month."
Data Storage

Reliability of Computer Memory? 724

Posted by kdawson from the check-some dept.
olddoc writes "In the days of 512MB systems, I remember reading about cosmic rays causing memory errors and how errors become more frequent with more RAM. Now, home PCs are stuffed with 6GB or 8GB and no one uses ECC memory in them. Recently I had consistent BSODs with Vista64 on a PC with 4GB; I tried memtest86 and it always failed within hours. Yet when I ran 64-bit Ubuntu at 100% load and using all memory, it ran fine for days. I have two questions: 1) Do people trust a memtest86 error to mean a bad memory module or motherboard or CPU? 2) When I check my email on my desktop 16GB PC next year, should I be running ECC memory?"
GNU is Not Unix

TomTom Can License FAT Without Violating the GPL 261

Posted by timothy from the ask-a-master-license-delver dept.
dp619 writes "Capped per-unit royalties make FAT licensing agreements permissible under the GPL, and SD Times has found that Microsoft's public license policy caps royalties at $250k. If the royalties are capped — as they seem to be — TomTom should be able to license FAT without violating the GPL. And if that is the case ... TomTom needs some serious explaining to do as to why they aren't licensing FAT. That said, Microsoft still needs to explain why it just cannot say that folks won't violate the GPL if they license FAT under its terms."
Hardware

Amiga Community Collaborates On Restorative Gel To Brighten Your Old Plastic 225

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the also-addicts-you-to-heroin dept.
jamie pointed out an Amiga community that took a discovery of how to restore old computer plastic, super-charged it, and then opened the process to the public domain. Time to spruce up those old dusty TRS-80s in the basement. "All of the initial tests were done with a liquid and we realized that for large parts this was getting expensive, so the next stage was to make a paintable 'gel' version that could be brushed onto larger surfaces. This was tried in Arizona in the sun and the UK under a UV lamp and was found to be just as effective as the liquid. We have now released this to the public domain for anyone to use as we can't patent it and we coined the nickname 'Retr0brite' for it, as it summed up what we were actually doing with it."
The Courts

Universal Attacks First Sale Doctrine 297

Posted by Soulskill from the aol-could-be-sitting-on-a-gold-mine dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "In Universal Music Group v. Augusto, UMG is attacking the first sale doctrine. The issue concerns some promotional CDs that were mailed out, and later found their way to eBay. According to UMG, the stickers on the discs claiming that they still own the CD give them a legal right to control what the recipients do with them, and thus, UMG should be able to dictate terms. The EFF has filed an amicus brief countering that claim, saying that because they were sent by US mail, unrequested by the recipient, they are in fact gifts, no matter what the sticker claims. If UMG somehow wins this, I plan to send them CD of copyrighted expletives with a sticker informing them of the contractually required storage location. We discussed a similar issue with e-books a couple weeks ago."

Comment the license is the story (Score 1) 135

by Arkine (#10418925) Attached to: Sam and Max 2: Reloaded
Does anybody remember when Lucas Arts' license expires on Sam and Max? There might be a story there. That shadow character on the projects page does look a little familiar. "We've quietly begun development on an exciting license that we can't wait to tell you about! Well, actually we HAVE to wait to tell you about it..." Hmmm....

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