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Publisher Whining Prompts Italian Investigation of Google 91

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the sounds-like-pure-unadulterated-greed-to-me dept.
Complaints about "lack of transparency" from publishers have prompted Italian competition authorities to begin an investigation of Google's search and news services. I'm sure their motives are completely altruistic. "Because Google does not disclose the criteria for ranking news articles or search results, he said, newspapers are unable to hone their content to try to earn more revenue from online advertising. Ad revenue on the Web is directly proportional to the size of the audience, which is heavily influenced by search or Google News rankings."

Feed Techdirt: Canada One Step Closer To Adding The 'You're A Criminal Tax' To iPods (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed
Remember two years ago when Canada's Supreme Court said that iPods shouldn't be subject to the blank media levy that the entertainment industry had convinced Canada to put on blank media like recordable CDs? Well, apparently the Supreme Court isn't the last word on the matter. Earlier this year, we noted that the Canadian Private Copying Collective, the group that administers this "you must be a criminal" tax on media was pushing to get the levy included on iPods anyway. Now, the Copyright Board of Canada appears to be supporting that position, saying that it's clearly within the law to tax iPods and other such devices. As Michael Geist notes, the ruling could also apply to such things as personal computers as well, as the entertainment industry may now start to claim that it needs a tax on anything that can store recordable content, even as it continues to fight piracy in Canada. So, at what point do people realize that the entertainment industry is getting paid twice here? First when they get the "you must be a criminal" tax and then again when people buy legitimately purchased content.

Feed Engadget: Squse shows off robot hand with "air muscles" (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Robots

Japan's Squse looks to be doing its best to keep robots from (unintentionally) crushing anything they get their hands on, recently unveiling a new robotic hand that uses so-called "air muscles" to keep all that superhuman strength in check. Specifically, the hand is packed with artificial fibers that are controlled using air pressure, which makes its movement precise enough to pick up a raw egg without breaking it, yet still no doubt strong enough for it to toss that rule book out the window and go on a five-fingered rampage. While it's one-of-a-kind for the time being, according the the AFP, the company expects to soon ship 50 prototypes to various firms and research institutes, after which it apparently plans to market the hand overseas.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Classic Games (Games)

Soviet Video Games from the 70s 66

Posted by Zonk from the really-really-old-skool dept.
vigmeister writes "A group of Russian kids have uncovered and rebuilt some arcade games from the Soviet era. These games apparently offered free play when someone played well, but no list of hi-scores. Roughly 32 of them have been found and although they are based on other arcade games, I hope these games were unique enough to offer playability for the present day arcade game lovers. 'Based largely (and crudely) on early Japanese designs, the games were distributed -- in the words of one military manual -- for the purposes of "entertainment and active leisure, as well as the development of visual-estimation abilities." Production of the games ceased with the collapse of communism, and as Nintendo consoles and PCs flooded the former Soviet states, the old arcade games were either destroyed or disappeared into warehouses and basements. It was mostly out of nostalgia that four friends at Moscow State Technical University began scouring the country to rescue these old games. '"

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