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Feed Did Apple junket inspire "no iPod left behind" initiative? (engadget.com)

Filed under: Portable Audio

Michigan's much-derided initiative to give iPods to every student in the state just seems to be getting curiouser and curiouser, with word now coming out that some of the lawmakers involved in the proposal went on a junket to California that was paid for at least in part by Apple. As The Detroit Free Press reports, both Representative Matt Gillard and House Speaker Andy Dillon took part in the 2 1/2 day trip earlier this year, where they apparently discussed classroom technology and the educational benefits of iPods, sneaking in some time to discuss wine distribution and business taxes as well. While it's not clear exactly how much of an influence the junket had on their decision, it certainly doesn't seem to have hurt things, with Dillon unveiling the $36-million iPod proposal not long after he returned.

[Via The Inquirer, photo courtesy of Anti iPod]

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Bug

New Way to Patch Defective Hardware 238

brunascle writes "Researchers have devised a new way to patch hardware. By treating a computer chip more like software than hardware, Josep Torrellas, a computer science professor from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, believes we will be able to fix defective hardware by a applying a patch, similar to the way defective software is handled. His system, dubbed Phoenix, consists of a standard semiconductor device called a field programmable gate array (FPGA). Although generally slower than their application-specific integrated circuit counterparts, FPGAs have the advantage of being able to be modified post-production. Defects found on a Phoenix-enabled chip could be resolved by downloading a patch and applying it to the hardware. Torrellas believes this would give chips a shorter time to market, saying "If they know that they could fix the problems later on, they could beat the competition to market.""

Feed WoW players learn value of Windows updates (theregister.com)

'Vuln left me naked and penniless'

Subscribers playing World of Warcraft on Windows machines continue to find their accounts stolen more than eleven months after hackers first began targeting them using a Trojan attack, according to posts on the game's official website. The perpetrators are employing sophisticated techniques that involve hundreds of booby-trapped sites that in some cases use the ANI cursor vulnerability that Microsoft patched last week.


Feed Alzheimer's Genetic Roots Explained (sciencedaily.com)

Scientists have long known that individuals with a certain gene are at higher risk for developing Alzheimer's disease. Now a new study helps explain why this is so. The research has uncovered a molecular mechanism that links the susceptibility gene to the process of Alzheimer's disease onset. The findings may lead to new pathways for development of Alzheimer's therapeutics.

Feed Security Firm Says It Can't Fight Phishing, So Banks Should Move To A New Domain (techdirt.com)

Our friends at anti-virus firm F-Secure have managed to combine two of our favorite things -- security FUD and useless top-level domains -- in a single story. The company says that ICANN should create a ".safe" TLD as a way to stop phishing. It contends that the domain could only be made available to registered banks and financial services firms, then users would know that they should only use sites from such companies that are hosted in the domain. It also contends that such a domain "would allow security providers to create better software to protect the public". The flaws in this concept are pretty obvious. Not only would it require every bank, credit-card company and financial services provider in the world to buy a new domain name and transfer their sites to it, but it doesn't do anything to get around the actual problem with phishing -- that people enter their personal information into sites they think are legitimate. Plenty of phishing attempts use domain names that are fairly obviously fake, but they're either masked by phishers some how, or victims simply don't pay enough attention to notice. Trying to move banks to a new domain won't help stop this at all, and won't provide any advantages over the current system. F-Secure says the change is needed to help security firms fight phishing, but that seems like little more than a comment about its own inadequacies rather than a convincing argument.

Feed Is AMD in Trouble? (pheedo.com)

More bad news for AMD: The company has surrendered the lead in the U.S. desktop retail market. Plus, sources indicated that Intel is in for a "vicious" performance battle with AMD.

Music

EFF Jumps in Against RIAA for Copyright Misuse 147

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Arguing that the RIAA and big record labels may be misusing their copyrights, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has jumped in on the defendant's side in a White Plains, New York, court conflict. The case is Lava v. Amurao, and the EFF will be defending Mr. Amurao's right to counterclaim for copyright misuse. EFF argued that the RIAA, by deliberately bringing meritless cases against innocent people based on theories of 'secondary liability', are abusing their copyrights. In its amicus brief, EFF also decried (just as when it joined the ACLU, Public Citizen, and others on the side of Debbie Foster in Capitol v. Foster) the RIAA's 'driftnet' litigation strategy. They argue that the declaratory judgment remedy must also be made available to defendants, in view of the RIAA's habit of dropping the meritless cases it started but can't finish."
The Internet

Dumping ISP May Cost Customers $150 268

Dumpling$9 writes with a link to an article that seems to speak volumes about the modern consumer relationship with service providers. IBT reports on the outrageous fees facing users who drop their internet service contracts before they are up. "Pricing broadband competition can be difficult. Broadband is rarely priced as a stand-alone service. Whether offered by a telephone company or a cable company, it is usually bundled with other services such as voice and video. The advantage to the customer is easier billing and usually a price break. But the down side is if they drop one of the services to pursue a better deal elsewhere, they lose the discount ... It remains to be seen whether penalties for Internet customers will cut down on churn. Consumers Union in its annual cell phone survey found that nearly half of all cell phone subscribers who were considering switching carriers were deterred from doing so because of early termination penalties."

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