Church of Scientology On Trial In France 890

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday May 26, 2009 @06:54PM from the speaking-truth-to-fraud dept.

An anonymous reader sends word that a trial has opened in Paris that could shut down Scientology in France. The organization stands accused of targeting vulnerable people for commercial gain. Scientology does not have the status of a religion there, as it does in the US, and anti-cult groups have pursued it vigorously over more than 30 years. The current case is based on complaints filed by two women in December 1998 and July 1999. Three other former members who had initially joined the complaint have withdrawn after "reaching a financial arrangement with church officials." If convicted, the seven top Scientologists in France face up to 10 years in prison and a fine of €1M. The Church of Scientology-Celebrity Centre and its Scientology Freedom Space bookshop not only face a much larger fine but also run the risk of being shut down completely.

Comment Playing Catch-up (Score 1) 209

by krog on Friday May 15, 2009 @04:32PM (#27972201) Attached to: How Google's High Speed Book Scanner De-Warps Pages

... The sophistication of the technology illustrates that would-be competitors who want to feature their own digitized libraries won't have a trivial time catching up to Google.

Especially with that shiny new patent.

Apple Refusing Any BitTorrent Related Apps? 296

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday May 11, 2009 @04:36PM from the ignorance-is-bliss dept.

jamie pointed out what appears to be an unfortunate policy for Apple's app store that is refusing anything to do with BitTorrent. The example is a remote control app that allows a user to interface with their Transmission BitTorrent client. This certainly isn't the first complaint over app store policy. Issues from the return policy to the "objectionable content" of Nine Inch Nails have some developers concerned over what Apple is doing to the market. Of course, many are quick to remind that it is Apple's store and they are free to do whatever they want with it.

Microsoft Releases New Concurrent Programming Language 297

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday May 11, 2009 @12:22PM from the secret-agent-man dept.

zokier writes "Microsoft has released a new programming language called Axum, previously known as Maestro and based on the actor model. It's meant to ease development of concurrent applications and thus making better use of multi-core processors. Axum does not have capabilities to define classes, but as it runs on the .NET platform, Axum can use classes made with C#. Microsoft has not committed to shipping Axum since it is still in an incubation phase of development so feedback from developers is certainly welcome."

Comment Yes. (Score 2, Insightful) 191

by krog on Friday March 20, 2009 @11:45AM (#27269179) Attached to: Red Hat Claims Patent On SOAP Over CGI

Of course they are. Of course they are. It's not bad when "we" do it.

Comment Nah, he exempts assistive devices specifically (Score 3, Insightful) 539

by krog on Wednesday February 25, 2009 @03:56PM (#26985713) Attached to: Authors Guild President Wants To End Royalty-Free TTS On Kindle

It's us sighted people who are expected to bend over the barrel.

I hope he's comfortable with the fact that he just lost the goodwill of a few hundred thousand geeks (who are among the heaviest readers). Good luck with that, champ.

Comment The tech has been here for years (Score 1) 397

by krog on Wednesday December 10, 2008 @03:03PM (#26064025) Attached to: Pushing 800W of Wireless Power at 5 Meters

Wanna pump 800W through the air? Pry the door off your microwave.

FreeBSD 6.4 Released 64

Posted by timothy on Tuesday December 02, 2008 @10:14AM from the unsung-but-nicely-free dept.

hmallett writes "FreeBSD 6.4-RELEASE, the fifth release from the 6-STABLE branch of FreeBSD development, is now available. In addition to being hosted at many FTP sites, ISO images can be downloaded via the BitTorrent tracker, or for users of earlier FreeBSD releases, FreeBSD Update can be used to perform a binary upgrade."

Comment Yes yes YES! (Score 1) 436

by krog on Tuesday November 25, 2008 @02:46PM (#25889371) Attached to: My favorite electrical unit is ...

Long live the mho! Its deprecation was totally unjustified. Its name alone implied what it is (an inverse ohm), its symbol reflected the name, and best of all, NO NAMESPACE COLLISION WITH PECKER TERMINOLOGY.

Comment Here is one (Score 1) 65

by krog on Wednesday November 19, 2008 @05:01PM (#25823427) Attached to: Good Deep-Knowledge Analog Design Books?

I found Analysis and Design of Analog Integrated Circuits (Gray/Hurst/Lewis/Meyer) to be a good book on deep-down transistor electronics. It is very theoretical, as you are looking for, and will support a strong understanding of analog transistor circuits.

I bought the "developing country" paperback edition for a lot less than $115 or whatever Amazon wants for the hardcover. Not a word is different.

Open Source Hardware, For Fun and For Profit 122

Posted by timothy on Friday October 24, 2008 @08:12AM from the make-it-so dept.

ptorrone writes "Lots of open source hardware articles making the rounds this week, first up — Wired has an excellent piece on the Arduino project, an open source electronics prototyping platform, its founders and business model (they have sold over 50,000 units). And next up MIT's Tech Review has a profile on a few open source hardware businesses including NYC based Adafruit Industries best known for projects like the open source synth (x0x0b0x) and 'fun' projects like the Wave Bubble, the open source cell phone/wifi/GPS/RF jammer."

Google Profiling Social Network Users 96

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday October 06, 2008 @11:09AM from the well-of-course-they-are dept.

David Harry writes "Google is looking deeper into behavioral targeting of social network users with three more patents. A while back, one patent came to light in the poorly termed ‘friendrank’; Google could be profiling social network users. These three patents now bring the series to five in total."

Achewood Creator on NPR 104

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday September 29, 2008 @09:17AM from the stuff-to-listen-to dept.

On my drive in to the office today, I heard an interview with a comic creator. Since I started the car mid-interview, it took me just a few moments to figure out who it was: Chris Onstad from Achewood (NSFW some days. Possibly including today, depending on your W). He's plugging his book The Great Outdoor Fight. Since his comic is one of the favorites here, I thought you all might enjoy hearing the interview. Today's comic is especially amusing given that it will likely be read by a great number of those NPR types unfamiliar with the strip.

Google's Floating Datahaven 450

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday September 15, 2008 @10:15AM from the don't-spring-a-leak dept.

PDG writes "Google has pending plans to take its data centers off-shore, literally. By moving their data centers to floating barges in international waters, they are able to save money on taxes and electricity (using wave based power) as well as reside their operations outside the jurisdiction of governments. There is mention of hurricane and other caveats, but I wonder how they plan to get a bandwidth pipe large enough and still be reliable. Seems like a chapter out of a Neal Stephenson novel." You might recall earlier discussions on the same subject.

YouTube Reposts Anti-Scientology Videos 435

Posted by timothy on Tuesday September 09, 2008 @11:38AM from the fun-and-easy-to-destroy-stuff dept.

Ian Lamont writes "YouTube has reposted anti-Scientology videos and reinstated suspended YouTube accounts after receiving thousands of apparently bogus DCMA take-down notices. Four thousand notices were sent to YouTube last Thursday and Friday by American Rights Counsel, LLC. After YouTube users responded with counter-notices, many of the videos were reposted. It turns out that the American Rights Counsel had no copyright claim on the videos, and the group may not even exist, although the text of the DCMA notices have been linked to a Wikipedia editor. While filing a false DMCA notice is a criminal offense, prosecution in these cases rarely comes about."