Baumi - Slashdot User

Submission + - Storing Music for Personal Use Online is Illegal

Submitted by

on Monday May 28, 2007 @05:38AM

An anonymous reader writes: In a court case of JASRAC vs. Image City, The Tokyo District Court handed down a ruling that says Image City's MYUTA service is guilty of copyright infringement. MYUTA is an online music storage service that allows users to upload music from their own CDs etc. to a central server from which they can download to their cellphones to listen to. Music uploaded to the central server is accessible only by the user who uploaded it and can only be downloaded to their cellphone. Despite the music only being stored for personal use, the ruling reasoned that the act of uploading music to a central server owned by a company is the equivalent of distributing music to that company. This has implications for other services such as Yahoo! Briefcase which could mean Yahoo! is gulity of copyright infringement if any of its users store music in their account for personal use. Google's translation can have a go at the original Japanese article.

Submission + - iPhone not running OS X

Submitted by

rochlin

on Thursday January 11, 2007 @06:47PM

rochlin writes: "The iPhone looks to be running on a Samsung provided ARM core processor. That means it's not running on an Intel (or PPC) core. That means it's not running OS X in any meaningful sense (Apple can brand toilet paper as running OS X if they like). Darwin, the BSD based operating system that underlies what Apple has previously called OS X does not run on ARM processors. The Darwin/Apple Public Source licensing agreement says the source would have to be made available if it is modified and sold (paraphrased. read it yourself). A Cingular rep has said the iPhone version of the OS source will not be made available. It will be closed, like the iPod OS and not Darwin. So if it ain't Darwin, it ain't OS X (in any meaningful way).An InfoWorld article on an FBR Research report breaks down iPhone component providers and lists Samsung as the chip maker for the main application/video cpu. So, that leaves the question... What OS is this phone really running? (not Linux or the source would need to be open)"

Journal Journal: Warner Solves Blu-ray, HD DVD War With Total HD

Journal by dare567k on Thursday January 11, 2007 @06:10PM

LAS VEGAS -- On Tuesday at CES, Warner Home Video made a splash with its announcement of the company's Total High-Def disc, a disc that will put an HD DVD-formatted movie on one side and a Blu-ray version on the other. In true Hollywood fashion, this announcement was an orchestrated and visual event, right down to the coordinated flashes of red and blue--Warner's way of representing the competing factions. HD DVD was red (an outgrowth of the deep-burgundy border that surrounds HD DVD cases), wh

Journal Journal: Is Google Falsely Flagging Harmless Sites?

Journal by dare567k on Thursday January 11, 2007 @05:54PM

Some Web site operators are complaining that Google is flagging their sites as containing malicious software when they believe their sites are harmless. At issue is an interstitial page that Google presents when a user clicks on a search result link to a site that Google believes contains malware. The page cautions users with the words "Warning - visiting this web site may harm your computer!" Google does not block access to the site, but a user must manually type in the Web site address to con

Submission + - Senator to FCC: no broadcast flag for you!

Submitted by Flag waver on Thursday January 11, 2007 @04:50PM

Flag waver writes: Senator John Sununu (R-NH) will introduce legislation that will prevent the FCC from creating technology mandates for the consumer electronics industry. As a result, the FCC would be hamstrung in its efforts to revive the broadcast flag. '"The FCC seems to be under the belief that it should occasionally impose technology mandates," Sununu said in a statement. "These misguided requirements distort the marketplace by forcing industry to adopt agency-blessed solutions rather than allow innovative and competitive approaches to develop."' Sen. Sununu previously tried without success to remove the broadcast flag provisions from the massive telecommunications bill that died before reaching the Senate floor during the last Congress.

Submission + - Dracula's Castle for sale in Romania: price $77m

Submitted by galaad2 on Monday January 08, 2007 @04:00PM

galaad2 writes: Want to own the real castle that was the source of all the vampire stories? Want to have your very own vampire castle? Here's your chance!

The Transylvanian castle of Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Count Dracula, is on sale for £40 million [timesonline.co.uk] (around 77 million dollars).

Bran Castle [telegraph.co.uk], near the historic city of Brasov, in central Romania, is one of the country's most popular tourist destinations because of its association with 15th-century Prince Vlad Tepes III, also known as the Impaler for his favoured method of executing opponents.

The local town council has preemption rights, they have 30 days to review the offer, and then the property will be put on the market.

Extra info: wikipedia article about Bran Castle

Submission + - PBS asking viewers to choose new Science show

Submitted by chinmay7 on Monday January 08, 2007 @03:01PM

chinmay7 writes: PBS has posted three different pilots for a new science show, that they want viewers to weigh in on and help choose one as a regular science show. All three pilots are viewable as vodcasts.
Wired Science aired on January 3rd. The pilot certainly is polished as expected from Wired Magazine, and deals with interesting topics: "Meet rocket-belt inventors, stem cell explorers and meteorite hunters."
Science Investigators (Air date: January 10) seems to be the most 'science' show: "The investigators examine 30,000-year-old Neanderthal DNA, vanishing frogs, mind-boggling baseball pitches and more."
22nd Century (Air date: January 17) is pretty gimmicky and loud (for my tastes, at least) but delivers interesting content — "In the coming decades will all our brains be wired together like networked computers?"

So watch and vote. Choose our new public TV science show.

TiVoToGo for Mac Announced 118

Posted by Hemos on Monday January 08, 2007 @10:55AM from the maybe-finally dept.

An anonymous reader writes "After much anticipation, some backpedaling, a bite of hope, and a delayed release date, TiVoToGo Mac Edition is here. While there have been some unofficial hacks, those solutions have not been ideal for everyone. With support for transferring shows and burning to DVD/iPod, TiVoToGo is bundled as a part of Roxio's Toast Titanium software that will be announced tomorrow at Macworld."

NASA May Have Killed The Martians 238

Posted by Zonk on Sunday January 07, 2007 @11:09PM from the that's-a-big-oopsie dept.

Sneakernets writes "CNN reports that NASA may have found life on Mars via the Viking space probes in 1976-77, but failed to recognize it and killed it by accident. Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a geology professor at Washington State University, says that Mars microbes that the space probes had found were possibly drowned and baked by accident. Other experts said the new concept is plausible, but more work is needed before they are convinced. From the article: 'A new NASA Mars mission called Phoenix is set for launch this summer, and one of the scientists involved said he is eager to test the new theory about life on Mars. However, scientists must come up with a way to do that using the mission's existing scientific instruments, said NASA astrobiologist and Phoenix co-investigator Chris McKay.'"

ABC/Disney Shuts Down Blog Exercising Fair Use 525

Posted by Zonk on Sunday January 07, 2007 @03:32PM from the mouse-trap dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A blogger named Spocko had his blog shut down by ABC/Disney lawyers because he had posted clips from an ABC Radio-affiliated program and commented on their content, as well as informed show advertisers of what exactly they were paying for. Spocko merely pointed out the content that station KSFO was broadcasting, and as a result Visa pulled their advertising from the station. More companies were reportedly considering pulling their ads. A YouTube video summary is available. From the Daily Kos article: 'How'd he do it? He did it the way it's always done - by working within the law, identifying points of weakness, exploiting them and being absolutely tenacious ... It appears to me as if Disney is attempting to bully a little guy in an unethical manner. Any media lawyer worth the air she breathes knows that Spocko's use was well protected.'"

Wikipedia Used for Artificial Intelligence 177

Posted by Zonk on Sunday January 07, 2007 @02:25PM from the great-it-has-finally-become-self-aware dept.

eldavojohn writes "It may be no surprise but Wikipedia is now being used in the field of artificial intelligence. The applications for this may be endless. For instance, the front of spam fighting is a tough one and it looks as though researchers are now turning towards an ontology or taxonomy based solution to fight spammers. The concept is also on the forefront of artificial intelligence and progress towards an application passing the Turing Test and creating semantically aware applications. The article comments on uses of Wikipedia in this manner: '"... spam filters block all messages containing the word 'vitamin,' but fail to block messages containing the word B12. If the program never saw B12 before, it's just a word without any meaning. But you would know it's a vitamin," Markovitch said. "With our methodology, however, the computer will use its Wikipedia-based knowledge base to infer that 'B12' is strongly associated with the concept of vitamins, and will correctly identify the message as spam," he added.'"

Submission + - Acer bugging computers

Submitted by tomjen on Sunday January 07, 2007 @08:50AM

tomjen writes: What if a well known laptop company had silently placed an ActiveX Control on their computers that allowed any webpage to execute any program?

Well Acer did and they have (based on the last modified-by date of the file) been doing this since 1998.

"Checking the interface of the control reveals it has a method named "Run()" as shown below. The method supports parameters "Drive", "FileName", and "CmdLine". Isn't it strange for a control that's marked "safe for scripting" to allow a method that is suggestive of possible abuse?"

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