Olympic Web Site Features Pirated Content 235
An anonymous reader writes "Despite all the emphasis on protecting Olympic copyrights in China this year, the official web site of the Beijing Olympics features a Flash game that is a blatant copy of one of the games developed at The Pencil Farm. Compare the game on the Olympic site with 'Snow Day' at The Pencil Farm."
Submission + - NIN $300 Limited Edition Sold Out Already 1
An anonymous reader writes: It looks like Trent Reznor's new Nine Inch Nails album experiment is a success. Among the various options he gave fans, the most expensive was the $300 Limited Edition Ultra Deluxe Package. It took just over a day for that package to completely sell out, earning Reznor $750,000 in revenue from just that option alone.
Submission + - Swiss DMCA quietly adopted (boingboing.net)
roady writes: We have seen a lot of talk about the Canadian DMCA. But few know about the Swiss version recently adopted by law makers, not even the Swiss people.
The government and media have been very quiet, probably to avoid a referendum. Indeed, Switzerland is a direct democracy and if 50'000 citizens sign a referendum, the whole country will have a chance to vote against the new copyright law. In this version of the DMCA, sharing a file on P2P networks will land you one year in jail, even though the law mandates a levy on blank media. The history of the law can be read here.
Submission + - Court orders Bush admin to disclose telecom ties (salon.com)
rgiskard01 writes: From Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com, "The Electronic Frontier Foundation has won another significant legal battle, as a federal judge in California yesterday ordered the Bush administration (.pdf) to comply with EFF's FOIA demand and disclose documents revealing its "communications with telecommunications carriers and members of Congress" regarding efforts to amend FISA and provide amnesty to telecoms."
Story: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2007/11/29/telecom_lobbying/
Court Order: http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/foia_C0705278/eff_v_odni_order.pdf
Story: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2007/11/29/telecom_lobbying/
Court Order: http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/foia_C0705278/eff_v_odni_order.pdf
Presidential Candidates and Online Privacy 475
noiseordinance writes "I'd like to know everyone's opinion about which presidential candidate seems most likely to preserve Internet privacy." We haven't officially started election coverage on Slashdot yet, but I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to start tossing out questions like this as we get closer to the primaries. Try to stay on the subject of on-line privacy- we can run more stories on other topics in the future.
Submission + - Google plans service to store users' data (wsj.com)
achillean writes: "Google Inc. wants to offer consumers a new way to store their files on its hard drives, in a strategy that could accelerate a shift to Web-based computing and intensify the Internet company's competition with Microsoft Corp. Google is preparing a service that would let users store on its computers essentially all of the files they might keep on their personal-computer hard drives. The service could let users access their files via the Internet from different computers and mobile devices when they sign on with a password, and share them online with friends. It could be released as early as a few months from now, one of the people said. Google's solution will compete with a wide variety of other products, best summed up in the following chart."
Submission + - America Takes Another Look at Maglev Trains (popularmechanics.com)
longacre writes: "With highways and airports steadily grinding to a crawl and fuel prices skyrocketing, city planners are taking a new look at high-speed rail solutions such as maglev to alleviate the nation's transportation bottlenecks. At costs of up to $100 million per track mile, the 300 mph, virtually silent, frictionless trains are a hard sell. In places like Los Angeles, however, where the next 30 years will add 6 million people to the population of an area whose transportation infrastructure is already overwhelmed, new capacity is desperately needed. Includes video of a General Atomics maglev prototype in action."
What If Gmail Had Been Designed by Microsoft? 279
caluml writes "There is a humourous look at "What would happen if Microsoft had designed GMail". Gems include: "Another security measurement we'll add is that you won't be able to log-in with just username anymore but are required to enter the full username@gmail.com. Furthermore, we will change the browser URL from 'http://gmail.microsoft.com/' to the more professional looking 'http://by114w.bay114.gmail.live.com/mail/mail.aspx?rru=home'.""
UN Says Tasers Are a Form of Torture 816
The use of Tasers "causes acute pain, constituting a form of torture," the UN's Committee Against Torture said. "In certain cases, they can even cause death, as has been shown by reliable studies and recent real-life events." Three men — all in their early 20s — died from after tasering in the United States this week, days after a Polish man died at Vancouver airport after being tasered by Canadian police. There have been 17 deaths in Canada following the use of Tasers since they were approved for use, and 275 deaths in the US. "According to Amnesty International, coroners have listed the Taser jolt as a contributing factor in more than 30 of those deaths."
Backing Up Your Brain 204
couch_warrior writes "Microsoft is now working on a system that will back up the contents of your brain.
The pilot project lacks a direct brain interface, but "MyLifeBits" will provide a simulacrum of actual memories.
No mention is made as to whether Microsoft will claim to own the digital rights to the content of your life, or what license fees you will have to pay to access your own memories." Honestly this looks like a bunch of hooey to me, but I figured others would be better suited to say.
Predicting The Google Phone 205
An anonymous reader writes "Inside The GPhone: What To Expect From Google's Android Alliance (an article at Information Week) argues that you can predict what the GPhone(s) will look like very easily, simply by listing the technologies of the Open Handset Alliance partners. According to this theory, the phone will have a user interface from Sweden's TAT, VCAST-like multimedia capabilities powered by PacketVideo Corp., and an iPhone-like capacitive touch-screen, from Synaptics. Hardware-wise, it'll probably be built around Texas Instruments' OMAP processors, which enable a single-chip world phone (GSM/EDGE/GPRS). "While the GPhone won't be revolutionary, it'll connect the pieces in pleasantly new ways," argues author Alex Wolfe. Should Apple be concerned?"
Submission + - Wikileaks releases sensitive Guantanamo manual (wired.com)
James Hardine writes: Wired is reporting that a never-before-seen military manual detailing the day-to-day operations of the U.S. military's Guantánamo Bay detention facility has been leaked to the web, via the whistleblowing site Wikileaks.org, affording a rare inside glimpse into the institution where the United States has imprisoned hundreds of suspected terrorists since 2002. The 238-page document, "Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures," is dated March 28, 2003. The disclosure highlights the internet's usefulness to whistle-blowers in anonymously propagating documents the government and others would rather conceal. The Pentagon has been resisting — since October 2003 — a Freedom of Information Act request from the American Civil Liberties Union seeking the very same document. Anonymous open-government activists created Wikileaks in January, hoping to turn it into a clearinghouse for such disclosures. The site uses a Wikipedia-like system to enlist the public in authenticating and analyzing the documents it publishes. The Camp Delta document includes schematics of the camp, detailed checklists of what "comfort items" such as extra toilet paper can be given to detainees as rewards, six pages of instructions on how to process new detainees, instructions on how to psychologically manipulate prisoners, and rules for dealing with hunger strikes.
Comment Official Website (Score 1) 164
Here's the link to the official website of BugLabs.
Submission + - A boost for fuel cells
Roland Piquepaille writes: "Researchers at the University of Houston (UH) have developed a new platinum-based catalyst for fuel cells that is at least four times more efficient and cheaper than existing catalysts. This discovery in fuel cell research may ease reliance on gasoline. According to the researchers, the active phase of the catalyst consists of nanoparticles with a platinum-rich shell and a core made of an alloy of copper, cobalt, and platinum. But it's not enough for this new catalyst to be more efficient and cheaper than a pure platinum one. It also needs to work for a long time — say, the life of a car. So far, the preliminary results look promising, but longer-term testing is needed before this kind of fuel cells can be used to power your car. But read more for additional references and a picture of a catalyst material being tested for use in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells."
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"Being against torture ought to be sort of a multipartisan thing." -- Karl Lehenbauer, as amended by Jeff Daiell, a Libertarian
