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The Courts

Submission + - RIAA ordered to divulge expenses-per-download

Submitted by NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: The Court has ordered UMG Recordings, Warner Bros. Records, Interscope Records, Motown, and SONY BMG to disclose their expenses-per-download to the defendant's lawyers, in UMG v. Lindor, a case pending in Brooklyn. The Court held that the expense figures are relevant to the issue of whether the RIAA's attempt to recover damages of $750 or more per 99-cent song file, is an unconstitutional violation of due process.
Books

Submission + - Top Ten Strangest or Cruellest Science Experiments 1

Submitted by
aalobode
aalobode writes: "The Times of London has a current story based on the review of a book by Alex Boase, Elephants on Acid and Other Bizarre Experiments. There they list the top science experiments — including the one from which the book gets its name — that were conducted by otherwise sane humans who tragically or otherwise ignored the effect of their research on the subjects themselves. Nowadays, most institutions have a review board for research on human subjects which would flag most proposals that could lead to harm for the subjects, but not so in the past. See for yourself at the url http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2779808.ece?OTC-HPtoppuff&ATTR=elephants"
Security

Submission + - 130 stolen laptops show lax security (blorge.com)

Submitted by
destinyland
destinyland writes: ""The khaki bandit" posed as an office worker at several corporations and successfully stole over 130 laptops which he later sold on eBay. The ease of theft from the corporate offices (including FedEx and Burger King) shows just how bad corporate security can be. (In some cases, the career thief just walked into the office behind an employee with a security badge.) Two million laptops were stolen just in 2004, and of those 97 percent were never recovered. Ultimately it was the corporate headquarters of Outback Steakhouse who caught the thief with a bugged laptop that notified them when he re-connected it to the internet."
Media

Submission + - NBC Chief, "Apple 'destroyed' music pricing (appleinsider.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: With the most colorful description yet, NBC Universal chief executive Jeff Zucker on Sunday urged colleagues to take a stand against Apple's iTunes, charging that the digital download service was undermining the ability of traditional media companies to set profitable rates for their content online.

"We know that Apple has destroyed the music business — in terms of pricing — and if we don't take control, they'll do the same thing on the video side,"
Security

Submission + - Ohio official docked vacation time for stolen tape (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: "The missing tape, stolen from an intern's car, contained data on all 64,467 state employees, 19,388 former employees and 47,245 Ohio taxpayers. The state believes the incident will cost them $3 million. So after four months of deliberation, the Ohio Department of Administrative Services announced today that they decided to take a week's vacation away from Jerry Miller, their payroll team leader and they guy in charge of the missing data, according to Brian Fonseca at Computerworld."
Media

Submission + - Copy Protection Backfires on Blu-ray

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The first two Blu-ray releases to hit the market encrypted with BD+ (an extra layer of protection designed to stave off hackers) are wreaking havoc on innocent consumers. As High-Def Digest reports, this week's Blu-ray releases of 'Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer' and 'The Day After Tomorrow' won't play back at all on at least two Blu-ray players, while load times on other players (including the PS3) are delayed by up to two minutes.
The Courts

Journal SPAM: Judge Voids California Election Over E-Voting Flaws 177

Journal by Jeremiah Cornelius

A judge in Alameda County, California, has voided some election results after the e-voting tallies from Diebold machines couldn't be audited. The vote was on a controversial ballot measure addressing the operation of medical marijuana dispensaries, and the expected result was a close margin. Activists went to court to demand a recount, but elections officials had

Comment Why a Sorority? (Score 2, Insightful) 376

by ChocolateAddict (#20760929) Attached to: Washington State LUG to Hold "Nerd Auction"
Why do they specifically need sorority girls? There are PLENTY of hot social women in technical majors that would gladly help them present themselves better. I speak from first hand experience. When I was in college, I lived in a dorm building with about 40 women in science and engineering majors. While not all of them are hot (maybe 60% were), about 90% of them were social, fun, and smart. And that was just in one dorm building. If they really must have a sorority, why not try Alpha Omega Epsilon? It's an engineering sorority (yes there is such a thing).
The Internet

Submission + - The Ban on Internet Service Taxes May Soon Expire (theseminal.com)

Submitted by
nelsonjs
nelsonjs writes: "On November 1st, the ban on taxing Internet service is set to expire. The ban was originally implemented in 1998, in order to encourage the proliferation of Internet access. If a compromise is not reached by November 1st, prices for Internet service nationwide could jump — as high as 17 percent, according to ISPs. There are currently two competing alternatives being considered in the Senate..."
Music

Submission + - Universal Offers iPod-proof MP3s (dailytech.com)

Submitted by dprovine
dprovine writes: Universal is now offering music through Spiral Frog, free downloads supported by advertising revenue. But according to this story, the MP3s being offered won't work on iPods. What sense does it make to shut out the largest hunk of the market? And how long will it take until there's a utility to fix the MP3s so they will work on your iPod?
Education

Submission + - GameStop manager suspended after 'games for grades (kvue.com)

Submitted by
mikesd81
mikesd81 writes: "A local Austin, Texas ABC affiliate, KVUE, reports about a manager at a GameStop that was suspended for instituting a "games for grades" policy. From the article: " Brandon Scott says he started a unique new policy in his store to promote good grades in school but now his employer has sent him to detention for speaking out of turn. Scott says he's been suspended by GameStop in the wake of his unconventional "games for grades" policy at an Oak Cliff store. " Apparently, on his own, Scott decided to stop selling video games to any school-age customer unless an adult would vouch for the student's good grades."
Announcements

Submission + - Brain Differences In Democrats and Republicans

Submitted by i_like_spam
i_like_spam writes: Scientists from NYU and UCLA report in Nature Neuroscience that the brains of Democrats and Republicans process information differently. This new study finds that the differences are apparent even when the brain processes common information, not just political topics. From the study, liberals were more likely to be accurate and showed more brain activity in the region associated with analyzing conflicts. A researcher not affiliated with the study stated, liberals 'could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.' Moreover, 'the results could explain why President Bush demonstrated a single-minded commitment to the Iraq war and why some people perceived Sen. John F. Kerry ... as a flip-flopper.
The Courts

Submission + - Drug testing entire cities at once

Submitted by
Ellis D. Tripp
Ellis D. Tripp writes: "Researchers have developed a technique for determining what illicit drugs people might be consuming in a given area, by testing a sample from the local sewage treatment plant. As little as a teaspoonful of untreated wastewater can reveal drug use patterns in a given community. From the article:

"one fairly affluent community scored low for illicit drugs except for cocaine. Cocaine and ecstasy tended to peak on weekends and drop on weekdays, she said, while methamphetamine and prescription drugs were steady throughout the week."

Obviously, any drugs found can't be tied to any specific user, but how much longer until the drug warriors want to deploy automatic sampling units farther upstream of the sewage treatment plant, sampling sewage output from selected neighborhoods, blocks, or even individual houses?

http://www.townhall.com/news/sci-tech/2007/08/21/s cientists_drug-test_whole_cities"
The Courts

Submission + - Tanya Andersen Brings Class Action Against RIAA

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Ever since the RIAA's litigation campaign began in 2003, many people have been suggesting a class action against the RIAA. Tanya Andersen, in Oregon, has taken them up on it. The RIAA's case against this disabled single mother, Atlantic v. Andersen, has received attention in the past, for her counterclaims against the RIAA including claims under Oregon's RICO statute, the RIAA's hounding of her young daughter for a face to face deposition, the RIAA's eventual dropping of the case "with prejudice", and her lawsuit against the RIAA for malicious prosecution, captioned Andersen v. Atlantic. Now she's turned that lawsuit into a class action. The amended complaint seeking class action status (pdf) sues for negligence, fraud, negligent misrepresentation, federal and state RICO, abuse of process, malicious prosecution, intentional infliction of emotional distress, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, trespass, invasion of privacy, libel and slander, deceptive business practices, misuse of copyright law, and civil conspiracy."

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