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Comment Re:I like the idea of everyone.... (Score 1) 779

by Kanaka Kid (#23791175) Attached to: Whose Rights Should US Courts Protect?
Yeah?
Please cite the treaty under which Guantanamo Bay is US Territory. No such treaty exists! Unlike diplomatic missions (e.g., embassies and consulates), that are deemed to be the territory under whatever flag they fly, the terms and conditions of military bases are negotiated. Cuba has been claiming that the US occupation of Guantanamo Bay is invalid under several treaties and, furthermore, that the US operations violate the original treaties should they deemed to be valid.
Under your definition, Iraq and Afghanistan are "US Territory", which, I am sure, is preposterous.
Microsoft

Microsoft Designed UAC to Annoy Users 571

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the at-least-they-are-being-honest dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "At the 2008 RSA security conference, Microsoft's David Cross was quoted as saying, 'The reason we put UAC into the platform was 'to annoy users. I'm serious.' The logic behind this statement is that it should encourage application vendors to eliminate as many unnecessary privilege escalations as possible by causing users to complain about all the UAC 'Cancel or Allow' prompts. Of course, they probably didn't expect that Microsoft would instead get most of the complaints for training users to ignore meaningless security warnings."
The Internet

Congress Gets Their Own Piece of YouTube to Host Videos 84

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the rules-lawyering dept.
YouTube has promised a commercial-free zone in the near future to help Congress deal with the problem of hosting campaign videos that were technically breaking the rule of not redirecting constituents to a commercial site. "Within a month, the one and only responder, YouTube, should have its commercial-free zone up and running, Capuano said. Republicans on the commission still fret that with only one such site, the House could be seen as picking winners and losers on the Web. Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), another commission member, said the panel's Republicans want to keep the new rules fluid enough to use any future Web site that comes forward with a better plan. 'Technology moves fast. Congress moves slow,' he said."
Input Devices

Ready for a CyberWalk? 69

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the holodeck-tech dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "Even with recent improvements in virtual reality technology, it's still almost impossible to physically walk through virtual environments. Now, European researchers have started a project named CyberWalk and they'll demonstrate next week their omni-directional treadmill, named CyberCarpet. According to ICT Results, the researchers 'had to address five key issues: providing a surface to walk on, controlling the surface in a way that minimized forces on the user, developing a non-intrusive tracking system, displaying a high-quality visualization, and ensuring a natural human perception of the virtual environment.' The researchers think that their new virtual environments would be used by architects and the gaming industry." Additional details are also available via the project website.
The Courts

Blogger Subpoenaed for Criticizing Trial Lawyers 500

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the lookin-for-a-free-ride dept.
Cutie Pi writes "Katherine Seidel, mother of an autistic child and an avid blogger has been subpoenaed for her "family's bank records, tax returns, autism-related medical and educational records, and every communication concerning all of the issues to which [she] has devoted [her] attention and energy in recent years." The lawyer in question is representing a mother who is suing Bayer for $20M with the claim that mercury in their vaccines caused her child's autism. In her blog Seidel has spoken out against lawyers trying to cash in on thimerosal lawsuits, noting that the thimerosal-autism link has been debunked in several studies. But Seidel herself has had no direct involvement in the lawsuit."
Government

Cities Tampering With Traffic Lights To Generate Revenue 736

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the hey-we-don't-have-to-pay-the-hospital-bills dept.
Techdirt is reporting that there has been a rash of reports indicating that red light cameras are being used to generate revenue rather than to promote safety. "Time and time again studies have shown that if cities really wanted to make traffic crossings safer there's a very simple way to do so: increase the length of the yellow light and make sure there's a pause before the cross traffic light turns green (this is done in some places, but not in many others). Tragically, it looks like some cities are doing the opposite! Jeff Nolan points out that six US cities have been caught decreasing the length of the yellow light below the legal limits in an effort to catch more drivers running red lights and [increase] revenue."
Spam

Judge In e360 Vs. Comcast Rules e360 a Spammer 156

Posted by kdawson from the are-too dept.
Brielle Bruns writes "Yesterday, Judge James B. Zagel dismissed claims against Comcast by e360. In the decision, the judge says: 'Plaintiff e360Insight, LLC is a marketer. It refers to itself as an Internet marketing company. Some, perhaps even a majority of people in this country, would call it a spammer.' This clears the path for Comcast's counter-suit." e360 is the spammer that got a default judgement against Spamhaus, as we have discussed on numerous occasions.
Science

Nanoclusters Break Superconductivity Record 138

Posted by kdawson from the room-temperature-in-siberia dept.
KentuckyFC writes "A couple of years ago, two Russian physicists predicted that metal nanoclusters with exactly the right number of delocalized electrons (a few hundred or so) could become strong superconductors. Now an American group has found the first evidence that this prediction is correct in individual aluminium nanoclusters containing 45 or 47 atoms. And they found it at 200 K (abstract). That's a huge jump over the previous record of 138K for a high-temperature superconductor. There are a few caveats, however. The result is only partial evidence of superconductivity and the work has yet to be peer-reviewed. But its mere publication will set scientists scrambling to confirm. And 200K! That's practically room temperature in the Siberian winter."
Portables

MacBook Air First To Be Compromised In Hacking Contest 493

Posted by Soulskill from the potential-reality-tv-show dept.
Multiple readers have written to let us know that the MacBook Air was the first laptop to fall in the CanSecWest hacking contest. The successful hijacking took place only two minutes into the second day of the competition, after the rules had been relaxed to allow the visiting of websites and opening of emails. The TippingPoint blog reveals that the vulnerability was located within Safari, but they won't release specific details until Apple has had a chance to correct the problem. The winner, Charlie Miller, gets to keep the laptop and $10,000. We covered the contest last year, and the results were similar.
Censorship

China's Battle to Police the Web 171

Posted by Zonk from the losing-battle dept.
What_the_deuce writes "For the first time in years, internet browsers are able to visit the BBC's website. In turn, the BBC turns a lens on the Chinese web-browsing experience, exploring one of the government's strongest methods of controlling the communication and information accessible to the public. 'China does not block content or web pages in this way. Instead the technology deployed by the Chinese government, called Golden Shield, scans data flowing across its section of the net for banned words or web addresses. There are five gateways which connect China to the internet and the filtering happens as data is passed through those ports. When the filtering system spots a banned term it sends instructions to the source server and destination PC to stop the flow of data.'"
Software

OpenOffice.org 2.4 Released 222

Posted by Zonk from the free-and-friendly dept.
ahziem writes "The multiplatform, multilingual office suite OpenOffice.org has announced the release of version 2.4. New features include 5 PDF export enhancements, text to columns in Calc, rectangular selection in Writer, bug fixes, performance improvements, improvements supporting the growing library of extensions such as 3D OpenGL transitions in Impress, and much more. Downloads are available either direct or P2P. In September, OpenOffice.org 3.0 will add PDF import, Microsoft Office 2007 file format support, and ODF 1.2."
Music

Researchers Play Tune Recorded Before Edison 314

Posted by Zonk from the now-that-is-an-oldie dept.
Tree131 writes "The New York Times is reporting that sound recordings pre-dating Edison's made by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, a Parisian typesetter and tinkerer, were discovered by American audio historians at the French Academy of Sciences in Paris. The archives are on paper and were meant for recording but not playback. Researchers used a high quality scan of the recording and an electronic needle to play back the sounds recorded 150 years ago. 'For more than a century, since he captured the spoken words "Mary had a little lamb" on a sheet of tinfoil, Thomas Edison has been considered the father of recorded sound. But researchers say they have unearthed a recording of the human voice, made by a little-known Frenchman, that predates Edison's invention of the phonograph by nearly two decades.'"
User Journal

Journal Journal: April Fool's Submissions Overboard and Underfunny 2

Journal by evought

I agree with some of the comments and submissions I have seen today that the yearly stupidity on Slashdot is just plain dumb. Unfortunately, these comments are drowned out. One or two good hoaxes would have made my day. ("Google Paper" was actually quite good). A score of idiotic and unbelievable posts just ruins the site and real news is buried. Having looked through the Firehose at several points today, there have been several serious submissions that have been voted up but have never made

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