hardcorehowe - Slashdot User

RIAA Seeks Royalties From Radio 555

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday May 22, 2007 @08:01AM from the deja-vu-all-over-again dept.

SierraPete writes "First it was Napster; then it was Internet radio; then it was little girls, grandmothers, and dead people. But now our friends at the RIAA are going decidedly low-tech. The LA Times reports that the RIAA wants royalties from radio stations. 70 years ago Congress exempted radio stations from paying royalties to performers and labels because radio helps sell music. But since the labels that make up the RIAA are not getting the cash they desire through sales of CDs, and since Internet and satellite broadcasters are forced to cough up cash to their racket, now the RIAA wants terrestrial radio to pay up as well."

Google Wins Nude Thumbnail Legal Battle 204

Posted by CowboyNeal on Thursday May 17, 2007 @08:03PM from the over-for-now dept.

eldavojohn writes "Google is currently fighting many fronts in its ability to show small images returned in a search from websites. Most recently, Google won the case against them in which they were displaying nude thumbnails of a photographer's work from his site. Prior to this, Google was barred from displaying copyrighted content, even when linking it to the site (owner) from its search results. The verdict: "Saying the District Court erred, the San Francisco-based appeals court ruled that Google could legally display those images under the fair use doctrine of copyright law." This sets a rather hefty precedence in a search engine's ability to blindly serve content safely under fair use."

Feed Forget Washing Dishes Or Sweeping Up; Parents Handing Off Online Chores To Kids (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed on Wednesday May 16, 2007 @09:52PM

For years we've seen stories about how kids tend to do tech support for their parents and other adults when it comes to computer related problems. However, a new article frames that story in a different light, suggesting that parents now give their kids "online chores" to do -- which can sometimes replace traditional household chores like washing the dishes or doing the laundry. The chores can include just about any online action that parents aren't entirely comfortable with -- from booking flights to setting up parties to getting movie listings. In fact, 14% of kids in the study claimed that they actually helped their parents file their tax returns online. This probably isn't particularly surprising, but it is representative of how central to family life computing and the internet has become, that using it is considered a chore like sweeping the hallway.

Annual H-1B Visa Cap Met In One Day 473

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday April 04, 2007 @12:05AM from the cheap-indentured-servitude dept.

CNet is reporting that the door has closed on the H1-B visa application process for this year, one day after it began. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services said that it had received 150,000 applications as of yesterday afternoon. 65,000 H1-B visas can be issued for foreigners with bachelor's degrees. The USCIS will choose randomly from the applications to determine the winners.

New Algorithms Improve Image Search 111

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @04:25PM from the where's-waldo dept.

bc90021 writes "Electrical engineers from UC San Diego are making progress on an image search engine that analyzes the images themselves. At the core of this Supervised Multiclass Labeling system is a set of simple yet powerful algorithms developed at UCSD. Once you train the system (the 'supervised' part), you can set it loose on a database of unlabeled images. The system calculates the probability that various objects it has been trained to recognize are present, and labels the images accordingly. After labeling, images can be retrieved via keyword searches. Accuracy of the UCSD system has outpaced that of other content-based image labeling and retrieval systems in the literature. One of the co-authors works at Google, where the researchers have access to image collections at the largest of scales."

World-Wide Revolution Launch Unneeded 48

Posted by Zonk on Monday March 27, 2006 @01:49PM from the going-global dept.

GamesIndustry.biz reports that, in the words of Nintendo President Iwata, a simultaneous global launch for the Nintendo Revolution is not necessary. From the article: "We don't think it's necessary to do the simultaneous worldwide launch simply because others are doing this." He also goes on to mention that they plan to have the DS shortage problem at least partially taken care of by the end of April.

Comment Great! (Score 2, Interesting) 224

by hardcorehowe on Monday July 18, 2005 @04:13AM (#13091687) Attached to: Direct to DVD Futurama Movie

This is the best nanosecond of my life, no wait this one is, that one was slightly worse, so far so good on this one. Would have been good to see the series return to TV, but any new Futurama material is going to be gold.

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