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Comment Misleading! (Score 2) 171

by coretx (#35820720) Attached to: European Court of Justice To Outlaw Net Filtering
Here you can read why: http://jay.lu/2011/04/%E2%80%98scarlet-extended%E2%80%99-%E2%80%93-ecj-to-prohibit-internet-filtering/ Don't get too excited about this ECJ ruling on internetfiltering , firstly it isn't a ruling, secondly it doesn't outlaw web-blocking. In other words; it's all up to the individual EU memberstates now. What i think will happen, is that France & the UK will start the nasty .biz followed by a lobbying campaign in Brussels for EU ( legislative )"harmonization" since this is how most nasty laws are passed.
Earth

Submission + - The Outfall of a Helium-3 Crisis (discovery.com)

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "The United States is currently recovering from a helium isotope crisis that last year sent low-temperature physicists scrambling, sky-rocketed the cost of hospital MRI’s, and threw national security staff out on a search mission for alternate ways to detect dirty bombs. Now the panic is subsiding, what is being done to conserve, or replace, helium-3?"
Chrome

Submission + - Facebook Develops HTML5 Gaming Benchmark (facebook.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A couple of Facebook engineers are developing an HTML5 gaming benchmark. They write, 'Two weeks ago Bruce and I released JSGameBench version 0.1. Today marks the release of version 0.2, a much faster and cleaner version. We continue to learn both from tightening the code and from the strong HTML5 community. Version 0.2 reinforces our belief in HTML5 as a strong, horizontal platform for games and highly interactive applications across the web.'
Security

Submission + - New SHA Functions Boost Crypto on 64-bit Chips (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The National Institute of Standards and Technology, guardian of America's cryptography standards, has announced a new extension to the SHA-2 hashing algorithm family that promises to boost performance on modern chips. Announced this week, two new standards — SHA-512/224 and SHA-512/256 — have been created to directly replace the SHA-224 and SHA-256 standards. They take advantage of the speed improvements inherent in SHA-512 on 64-bit processors to produce checksums more rapidly than their predecessors — but truncate them at a shorter length, reducing the overall timespan and complexity of the digest.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Bans Open Source From The Windows Market (thinq.co.uk) 1

Submitted by Blacklaw
Blacklaw writes: Microsoft has raised the ire of the open source community with its Windows Marketplace licence by specifically refusing to allow software covered under an open licence to be distributed. The licence, which anyone wishing to distribute Windows, Windows Phone, or Xbox applications through the company's copy of Apple's App Store is required to agree to, is the usual torrent of legalese — but hides a nasty surprise for those who support open source ideals.
Canada

Submission + - Foreign hackers attack Canadian Government (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "An unprecedented cyberattack on the Canadian government from China has given foreign hackers access to highly classified federal information, and forced at least two key departments off the internet, CBC News has learned.

The attack, first detected in early January, left Canadian counter-espionage agents scrambling to determine how much sensitive government information may have been stolen and by whom."

Should note that our Auditor-General warned of this months ago and was ignored by everyone as she usually is. Should also note that public sentiment towards China is getting very, very testy.
Earth

Submission + - Researchers: 100% Green Energy Possible By 2050 (greencarreports.com)

Submitted by thecarchik
thecarchik writes: Researchers from Stanford University and the University of California-Davis published their analysis in the journal Energy Policy. The main challenges, say the authors, will be summoning the global will to make the conversion.

There are no technological or economic barriers to converting the entire world to clean, renewable energy sources, said author Mark Jacobson, a Stanford professor, saying it is only a question of "whether we have the societal and political will."

During this decade, the two "fuels of the future" will be electricity and gasoline. Beyond that, we can't project.
Android

Submission + - Google Announces One Pass Payment System (blogspot.com)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: Riding the tail of Apple's 30% announcement, Google's Eric Schmidt has announced One Pass, a new method for users to pay for content. The BBC is reporting that Google is taking a 10% cut. One Pass will work on Google sites and on phones and tablets as the announcement notes: 'Readers who purchase from a One Pass publisher can access their content on tablets, smartphones and websites using a single sign-on with an email and password. Importantly, the service helps publishers authenticate existing subscribers so that readers don't have to re-subscribe in order to access their content on new devices.' This is to be handled through Google Checkout.
Patents

German High Court Declares All Software Patentable 330

Posted by StoneLion from the bitter-patent-medicine dept.
FlorianMueller writes "Long gone are the times when Europe was that bastion of resistance against software patents and patents on such things as file systems were ruled invalid. In a decision published today, the Federal Court of Justice of Germany upheld a patent on the automatic generation of structured documents (such as XML/HTML) in a client-server setting. The ruling lays out general principles that go beyond the patent at stake: they tear down all barriers to software patentability in the largest EU member state, even though a European patent treaty has been adopted that was intended to exclude software from the scope of patentable subject matter. EU patent examiners recently warned against a drift toward software patents. Software patent critics in Europe fear this will spark more litigation on their continent and increasingly call for defensive measures."
Government

EU Patent Examiners Warn Parliament Will Have "No Power" 99

Posted by kdawson from the abdication-by-another-name dept.
zoobab writes "The Staff Union of the European Patent Organisation sent a letter to the President of the European Parliament, warning that after the EU accedes to the European Patent Convention, there is a risk that the European Parliament would be 'circumvented' as a legislator. The European Patent Organisation is in no way a model of democracy: national patent offices are in power, there is no parliament involved in the decision-making process, and diplomatic conferences are held behind closed doors. There are plans to create a central patent court in Europe, which would operate in a democratic vacuum, not counterbalanced by any legislative assembly, in particular not the European Parliament. Such a central patent court could also validate software patents via caselaw (as the German Supreme Court recently did with the Microsoft FAT patent). And Microsoft, IBM, and SAP are lobbying in Brussels not to reopen consideration of the software patent directive."
The Internet

The Telcos' Secret Anti-Net Neutrality Strategy 457

Posted by kdawson from the net-brutality dept.
NoMoreHelio writes "The political blog ThinkProgress lays out big telecom's plan to attack net neutality. The blog obtained a secret PowerPoint presentation from a telecommunications industry front group (PPT) that outlines the industry strategy for defending against regulatory attempts by the FCC. The industry plans to partner with two conservative 'astroturfing' groups, best known for their work seeding the Tea Party movement. Today's revelation from ThinkProgress comes as Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) joined various telecom-funded front groups to unveil an anti-net neutrality bill."

Submission + - "No Power for the Parliament" warns EPO examiners 2

Submitted by zoobab
zoobab writes: The Staff Union of the EPO (SUEPO) sent a letter to the President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, warning of risks for the European Parliament to be "circumvented" as a legislator when the EU will accede to the European Patent Convention (EPC). The European Patent Organisation is everything except a model of democracy: national patent offices are in power, there is no parliament involved in the decision making process, and diplomatic conferences are held behind closed doors. There are plans to create a central patent court in Europe, which would operate in a democratic vacuum, as it would not be counterbalanced by any legislative assembly, let alone the European Parliament. Such central patent court could also validate software patents via caselaw (as it was recently done with the Microsoft FAT patent by the German Supreme Court), and Microsoft, IBM or SAP are lobbying in Brussels not to reopen the software patent directive.

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