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Submission + - Eyes Over Compton: How Police Spied on a Whole City (theatlantic.com)

Submitted by Advocatus Diaboli
Advocatus Diaboli writes: n a secret test of mass surveillance technology, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department sent a civilian aircraft* over Compton, California, capturing high-resolution video of everything that happened inside that 10-square-mile municipality. Compton residents weren't told about the spying, which happened in 2012. "We literally watched all of Compton during the times that we were flying, so we could zoom in anywhere within the city of Compton and follow cars and see people," Ross McNutt of Persistence Surveillance Systems told the Center for Investigative Reporting, which unearthed and did the first reporting on this important story. The technology he's trying to sell to police departments all over America can stay aloft for up to six hours. Like Google Earth, it enables police to zoom in on certain areas. And like TiVo, it permits them to rewind, so that they can look back and see what happened anywhere they weren't watching in real time.

Submission + - The Ethical Dilemmas Today's Programmers Face

Submitted by snydeq
snydeq writes: As software takes over more of our lives, the ethical ramifications of decisions made by programmers only become greater. Unfortunately, the tech world has always been long on power and short on thinking about the long-reaching effects of this power. More troubling: While ethics courses have become a staple of physical-world engineering degrees, they remain a begrudging anomaly in computer science pedagogy. Now that our code is in refrigerators, thermostats, smoke alarms, and more, the wrong moves, a lack of foresight, or downright dubious decision-making can haunt humanity everywhere it goes. Peter Wayner offers a look at just a few of the ethical quandaries confronting developers every day. 'Consider this less of a guidebook for making your decisions and more of a starting point for the kind of ethical contemplation we should be doing as a daily part of our jobs.'

Submission + - Administration ordered to divulge legal basis for killing Americans with drones

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In a claim brought by The New York Times and the ACLU, the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the administration must disclose the legal basis for targeting Americans with drones. From the article: 'Government officials from Obama on down have publicly commented on the program, but they claimed the Office of Legal Counsel's memo outlining the legal rationale about it was a national security secret. The appeals court, however, said on Monday that officials' comments about overseas drone attacks means the government has waived its secrecy argument. "After senior Government officials have assured the public that targeted killings are 'lawful' and that OLC advice 'establishes the legal boundaries within which we can operate,'" the appeals court said, "waiver of secrecy and privilege as to the legal analysis in the Memorandum has occurred" (PDF).

Submission + - Oklahoma Moves To Discourage Solar and Wind Power

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Paul Monies reports at NewsOK that Oklahoma's legislature has passed a bill that allows regulated utilities to apply to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to charge a higher base rate to customers who generate solar and wind energy and send their excess power back into the grid reversing a 1977 law that forbade utilities to charge extra to solar users. "Renewable energy fed back into the grid is ultimately doing utility companies a service," says John Aziz. "Solar generates in the daytime, when demand for electricity is highest, thereby alleviating pressure during peak demand."

The state’s major electric utilities backed the bill but couldn’t provide figures on how much customers already using distributed generation are getting subsidized by other customers. Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. and Public Service Co. of Oklahoma have about 1.3 million electric customers in the state. They have about 500 customers using distributed generation. Kathleen O’Shea, OG&E spokeswoman, said few distributed generation customers want to sever their ties to the grid. “If there’s something wrong with their panel or it’s really cloudy, they need our electricity, and it’s going to be there for them,” O’Shea said. “We just want to make sure they’re paying their fair amount of that maintenance cost.” The prospect of widespread adoption of rooftop solar worries many utilities. A report last year by the industry’s research group, the Edison Electric Institute, warns of the risks posed by rooftop solar (PDF). “When customers have the opportunity to reduce their use of a product or find another provider of such service, utility earnings growth is threatened,” the report said. “As this threat to growth becomes more evident, investors will become less attracted to investments in the utility sector.”

Submission + - $42,000 Prosthetic Hand Outperformed by $50 3D Printed Hand (3dprint.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A man named Jose Delgado was so used to using a $42,000 myoelectric prosthetic hand for the last year that he didn't realize that there were other options out there. Although Delgado, born without a left hand, was able to obtain the hand via his insurance, he found that a 3D printed "Cyborg Beast," open source hand ,which costs just $50 to print, actually was more comfortable and performed better than the device which costs 840 times as much money.

Comment Tell Disney how you feel (Score 1) 254

by Tise (#36137292) Attached to: Disney Seeks Trademark On 'Seal Team 6'

You can also leave a comment for Disney here - http://corporate.disney.go.com/citizenship/feedback.html

While a petition to cancel the trademarks could arguably be filed on the grounds that Disney is not able to *legitimately* exercise control over the use of the mark (see below) if they get enough nasty feedback and public commentary they will probably choose to withdraw or just abandon their application.

307 Time for Filing Petition to Cancel
15 U.S.C. 1064 [Section 14 of the Trademark Act] A petition to cancel a registration of a mark, stating the grounds relied upon, may, upon payment of the prescribed fee, be filed as follows by any person who believes that he is or will be damaged...
***
(5) At any time in the case of a certification mark on the ground that the registrant
(A) does not control, or is not able legitimately to exercise control over, the use of such mark,

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