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Media

Music Industry Tells Advertisers to Boycott "Pirate" Baidu 206

Posted by timothy from the takes-one-to-know-one dept.
An anonymous reader points to a story at PC Authority, which begins: "Music industry representatives have warned advertisers to stop supporting Baidu, China's largest search engine, because they believe it is encouraging music piracy. Baidu is the largest source of pirated music in China, according to the representatives, who describe the company as 'incorrigible.' The Chinese firm's music search engine is accessed through what is described as a prominent link on the company's home page."
The Almighty Buck

Video Game Actors Say They Don't Get Their Due 573

Posted by timothy from the 100k-isn't-exactly-peanuts dept.
Dekortage writes "The New York Times reports today about Michael Hollick, the actor who provided the voice of Niko Bellic in Grand Theft Auto IV. Although the game has made more than $600 million in sales for Rockstar Games, Hollick earns nothing beyond the original $100K he was paid. If this was television, film, or radio, Hollick and the other GTA actors could have made millions by now. Hollick says, 'I don't blame Rockstar. I blame our union for not having the agreements in place to protect the creative people who drive the sales of these games. Yes, the technology is important, but it's the human performances within them that people really connect to, and I hope actors will get more respect for the work they do within those technologies.' Is it time for video game actors to be treated as well as those in other mediums?"
Transportation

New X-Prize for Fuel Efficient Cars Announced 371

Posted by Zonk from the it's-like-the-robot-one-but-with-less-programming dept.
miowpurr writes "A new X-Prize for ultra fuel efficient cars has been announced. The winning car must 'carry four or more passengers and have climate control, an audio system and 10 cubic feet of cargo space. They also must have four or more wheels, hit 60 miles per hour in less than 12 seconds and have a minimum top speed of 100 miles per hour and a range of 200 miles. Those that qualify will race their vehicles in cross-country races in 2009 and 2010 that will combine speed, distance, urban driving and overall performance.'"
Government

Sequoia Vote Machine Can't Do Simple Arithmetic? 254

Posted by Zonk from the lessee-nothin-into-nothin-carry-the-nothin dept.
whoever57 writes "Ed Felten is showing a scan of the summary from a Sequoia voting machine used in New Jersey. According to the paper record, the vote tallies don't add up — the total number of Republican ballots does not match the number of votes cast in the Republican primary and the total number of Democratic ballots does not match the number of votes cast in the Democratic primary. Felten has a number of discussions about the problems facing evoting, up to and including a semi-threatening email from Sequoia itself." Update: 03/20 23:30 GMT by J : Later today, Felten added an update in which he analyzes Sequoia's explanation. He has questions, comments, and a demand.
Intel

Intel Skulltrail Benchmark and Analysis 111

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the coming-up-short dept.
Tom's Hardware has a detailed benchmark and analysis of Intel's new Skulltrail offering, taking a look at 8 vs 4 cores. The comparison uses games, A/V applications, office applications, and 3D rendering tools to help demonstrate benchmarks. "We were disappointed by the Skulltrail platform. Although we have tested and reviewed numerous Intel products, we have never had such a half-baked system such as this in our labs. If this sounds harsh, bear in mind that all we have to base this conclusion on is the Skulltrail system itself in its current state, which Intel provided as an official review platform. We do not know whether Intel plans to revise and improve the platform before the final versions ship to retail."
Music

Canadian Songwriters Propose Collective Licensing 455

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the all-about-just-gettin-paid dept.
aboivin writes "The Songwriters association of Canada has put forward a proposition for collective licensing of music for personal use. The Right to Equitable Remuneration for Music File Sharing would legalize sharing of a copy of a copyrighted musical work without motive of financial gain, for a monthly fee of $5.00 applied to all Canadian internet connections, which would be distributed to creators and rights holders. From the proposal: 'File sharing is both a revolution in music distribution and a very positive phenomenon. The volunteer efforts of millions of music fans creates a much greater choice of repertoire for consumers while allowing songs — both new and old, well known and obscure — to be heard. All that's needed to fulfill this revolution in distribution is a way for Creators and rights holders to be paid.'"
Book Reviews

The Official Ubuntu Book 139

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
Craig Maloney writes "Over the long history of Linux, there have been many different distributions. One of the most famous distributions, love it or hate it, is the Ubuntu distribution. Ubuntu has come quickly from being the new kid on the block with the Warty Warthog release (4.10) to the most recent release Gutsy Gibbon (7.10). In that three year span, Ubuntu has grown from a handful of enthusiasts and developers to a thriving worldwide community. The Official Ubuntu Book is the official book from Canonical, which describes not only the Ubuntu distributions, but also the community from which Ubuntu is derived." Read below for the rest of Craig's review.
Google

Google's Plans for a Social API 83

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i'm-still-waiting dept.
NewsCloud writes "After tonight's Breaking Open Facebook with Free Open Source Software, TechCrunch reports Google plans to announce an open API for social networking tomorrow. "OpenSocial is a set of three common APIs, defined by Google with input from partners, that allow developers to access core functions and information at social networks: 1) Profile Information (user data) 2) Friends Information (social graph) and 3) Activities (things that happen, News Feed type stuff)" Says Om Malik: "OpenSocial attacks Facebook where it is the weakest (and the strongest): its quintessential closed nature...Even if you take Facebook out of the equation, the task of writing and adapting widgets for the every increasing number of social platforms was going to be turn into a colossal mess.""
Security

Unicode Encoding Flaw Widespread 184

Posted by kdawson from the sneaking-past-the-IDS dept.
LordNikon writes "According to this CERT advisory: 'Full-width and half-width encoding is a technique for encoding Unicode characters. Various HTTP content scanning systems fail to properly scan full-width/half-width Unicode encoded HTTP traffic. By sending specially-crafted HTTP traffic to a vulnerable content scanning system, an attacker may be able to bypass that content scanning system.' A proof of concept affecting IIS is already being posted to security mailing lists. Cisco IPS and other IDS products are also affected." The CERT advisory lists 93 systems, with 6 reported as vulnerable (including 3com, Cisco, and Snort), 5 known not vulnerable (including Apple and HP), and the rest unknown.

Feed Gene Therapy Restores Vision Cells In Blind Mice (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed
Researchers used gene therapy to restore sight in mice with a form of hereditary blindness, a finding that has bearing on many of the most common blinding diseases. They describe how they used a harmless virus to deliver corrective genes to mice with a genetic impairment that robs them of vision.

Comment Re:Goddammit (Score 1) 182

by OppressiveGiant (#15736598) Attached to: Sony Pulls Controversial PSP Ad, Issues Apology
There is a difference between being insensitive and racism. There is a difference between flatout defaming a racial or ethnic group and doing something that irritates people. People are going to bring their own interpretation when viewing things. How much of the uproar is from creator and how much is from the viewer? Where do you draw the line?

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