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Intel

Intel Insider DRM Risks Monopoly Investigations 217

Blacklaw writes "Intel's Sandy Bridge line of processors is impressing the tech community with its power, but a sneaky little feature designed to appease Hollywood has some concerned about Intel's intentions: Intel Insider. If a major video streaming service, such as Lovefilm or the US-based Hulu, were to implement Intel Insider technology on their movie streams — as a way of convincing Hollywood to release films sooner and in high definition without worrying about piracy — it would mean that only those who use Intel's very latest Sandy Bridge CPUs would be able to stream movies. Not only would those using older Intel chips that don't support the technology be cut off from the service, but those on systems featuring CPUs from rival manufacturers such as AMD and low-power specialist VIA would also be excluded." In a blog post about this new feature, Intel denies that it is DRM.
Censorship

WikiLeaks Continues To Fund Itself Via Flattr 194

novenator writes "Since the corporations MasterCard, PayPal, and Visa have been trying to shut down the cash flow to the Wikileaks project, those who wish to donate have been having trouble finding a way to help out. The social media/micropayment site Flattr (run from Sweden) continues to leave the channels open."
Image

Thief Posts His Photo To Facebook Victim's Account 222

An anonymous reader writes "Washington Post reporter Marc Fisher discovered his house had been burgled; money, a winter coat, an iPod and his son's laptop were stolen. Imagine his surprise when Facebook friends of his 15-year-old son reported that a photo of the apparent thief, wearing Fisher's coat and holding a wad of notes, had been uploaded to his son's Facebook account. How addicted do you have to be to a social network to post a status update and upload your photo *while* you're burgling someone's house?"
The Courts

Judge Ends Massive Porn Lawsuit 181

eldavojohn writes "A recent offensive of porn producers using copyright law against many anonymous P2P users has been terminated by a West Virginian judge. Initially, Ken Ford of Adult Copyright Company planned out nine lawsuits against some 22,000 file sharers, starting with 7,000-person and 9,000-person suits in the first wave. Unimpressed, the judge reduced everything down to one lawsuit against one file sharer, telling the Adult Copyright Company that they are to prosecute each individual separately, as the accused neither participated in the same transaction nor collaborated in these offenses. So, if you're looking to hit 22,000 people with such a lawsuit, the $350 court filing fee will require an investment of $7.7 million ($1.8 million for the individuals listed so far). Ars points out the hilarious fact that 'Ford has sued enough people that lawyers are taking out ads on his company name,' providing an image of an advertisement for such a search. This is separate from a similar showdown in US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois."
Security

Antivirus Firms Short-Changing Customers 205

Barence writes "Two leading security firms have been accused of ripping off customers by cutting short their antivirus subscriptions. AVG and Symantec are offering their own customers discounts on subscriptions via email or pop-ups, but the new subscriptions start immediately, 'short-changing' users who had months left on their existing deal. Both Symantec and AVG owned up to the practice, and said they had no plans to change their ways, instead advising their customers to upgrade as close as possible to the end of the subscription. However, the pair actively send out emails and pop-up messages that encourage customers to upgrade immediately."

Comment Re:iblame imac . . . (Score 1) 179

Actually, I think iCarly got it right. It refers to her internet show. Doesn't the "i" stand for "internet"? Steve changed it with the launch of the iMac. He started the with iCEO when he first came back to Apple. Then it stood for "interim". Unfortunately, I didn't have any $$ then or I would be in a little different position now. Apple stock was $13 a share! -D
Operating Systems

Linux Desktop Distro Shootout 383

An anonymous reader writes "InfoWeek has posted an open-source OS comparison. Linux Shootout: 7 Desktop Distros Compared pits openSUSE, Ubuntu 8.4, PCLinuxOS, Mandriva Linux One, Fedora, SimplyMEPIS, and CentOS 5.1 against each other. And the winner is ... Ubuntu. Author Serdar Yegulalp writes: 'Ubuntu 8.4 remains one of the best desktop distributions for many good reasons: it works with almost any hardware you throw at it, and has tons of features for both existing Linux users and prospective converts from Windows.' He also gave openSUSE points for ease of use on the desktop, and Mandriva kudos for ease of administration."
Space

How Water Forms in Interstellar Space at 10K 270

KentuckyFC writes "Water is the most abundant solid material in space. But although astronomers see it on planets, moons, in comets and in interstellar clouds, nobody has been able to show how it forms. In theory, it should form easily when oxygen and atomic hydrogen meet. The problem is that there is not enough of it floating around as gas in interstellar dust clouds. So instead, the thinking is that water must form when atomic hydrogen interacts with frozen solid oxygen on the surface of dust grains in these clouds. Now Japanese astronomers have demonstrated this process for the first time in the lab in conditions that simulate interstellar space. That's cool because all the water in the solar system, including almost every drop you drink on Earth today, must have formed in exactly this way more than 5 billion years ago in a pre-solar dustcloud (abstract)."

Speed Racer's Visual FX Uncovered 274

Marco Trezzini writes "View exclusive interactive samples of the digital building blocks behind the Speed Racer movie in VRMag's in-depth interviews with award-winning Matrix visual FX guru John Gaeta, Dennis Martin, Lubo Hristov, and Jake Morrison. Including Virtual Reality panoramas of the movie locations, turn tables of the mach 5 and 6, and many making of videos unveiling the secrets of the visual effects. Link to 'Speed Racer uncovered' and to John Gaeta's interview." The first time I saw the trailer for this movie, my jaw hit the floor. Nobody makes live action "Cartoons" that look like this. I guess that makes me believe there is no way the movie can be good.
Censorship

China Wants US-Owned Hotels to Censor Internet 279

jp_papin writes "The Chinese government is demanding that US-owned hotels there filter Internet service during the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing, US Senator Sam Brownback has alleged. The Chinese government is requiring US-owned hotels to install Internet filters to 'monitor and restrict information coming in and out of China,' Brownback said Thursday. 'This is an insult to the spirit of the games and an affront to American businesses,' he said. 'I call on China to immediately rescind this demand.' US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said he wasn't aware of those specific requests from the Chinese government, but Brownback said he got the information on Internet filtering from 'two different reliable but confidential sources.' The State Department is apparently continuing dialog with China about freedom of expression."
Spam

100 Email Bouncebacks - Welcome to Backscattering 316

distefano links to a story on Computerworld, excerpting: "E-mail users are receiving an increasing number of bounceback spam, known as backscatter, and security experts say this kind of spam is growing. The bounceback e-mail messages come in at a trickle, maybe one or two every hour. The subject lines are disquieting: 'Cyails, Vygara nad Levytar,' 'UNSOLICITED BULK EMAIL, apparently from you.' You eye your computer screen; you're nervous. What's going on ? Have you been hacked? Are you some kind of zombie botnet spammer? Nope, you're just getting a little backscatter — bounceback messages from legitimate e-mail servers that have been fooled by the spammers."
Microsoft

The Continuing War Against Microsoft's "Facts" Campaign 316

davidmwilliams writes "I've been rallying against Microsoft's so-called 'Get the Facts' site for the last fortnight in my blog. Rather than give any legitimate comparison facing off Windows Server vs similarly spec'd Linux options, the Microsoft spin doctors opt for bunkum and hogwash with sensational headlines that don't have any substance underneath. Here's the state of play, including an update on my request to Microsoft PR to do something about the blatant lack of integrity displayed. I also go over the latest case study put up by Microsoft: they promise to show why people are choosing Windows Server 2008 over Linux using the City of Uppsala as an example."

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