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Submission + - Finland to legalize use of unsecured WiFi (yle.fi)

Submitted by Apotekaren
Apotekaren writes: The Finnish Ministry of Justice has started preparing changes to the current law that criminalizes using unsecured wireless hot spots. The reasoning is the impossibility of tracking unlawful use, the ease of securing networks and the lack of real damage done by this this activity. It has also been proven hard for a user to know if an unsecured network is intended for public use or not. The increased ubiquity of legal open networks in parks, airports and other public places has also influenced this move by the Ministry of Justice. The Ministry has stated that the legal rights of the owner of the network have to be protected in the case of misuse.
Googles (poorly) translated version here.
Robotics

Submission + - Dutch unveil robot gas station attendant (reuters.com)

Submitted by
Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: "According to a Reuters' story, Dutch inventors today took the wraps off a $111,100 car-fueling robot they say is the first of its kind. After registering the car as it pulls up to the pump, the machine matches your fuel cap design with those in a database and your car's fuel types, and then a robotic arm fitted with multiple sensors extends from a regular gas pump, "opens the car's flap, unscrews the cap, picks up the fuel nozzle and directs it towards the tank opening, much as a human arm would, and as efficiently." Would you like green stamps with that?"
Sun Microsystems

Journal SPAM: Netbeans 6.0 4

Journal by stoolpigeon

Netbeans 6.0 is currently in beta. The netbeans.org site says that release is scheduled for next month. There are already some very nice tutorials and documentation up for this new version of netbeans.

I'm already extremely pleased with netbeans. Most of the projects I play with are desktop apps, and I
Censorship

Submission + - Law firm claims copyright on viewing HTML source 2

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: A law firm with all sorts of interesting views on copyrights has decided to go the extra mile. As reported on Tech Dirt, they've decided that viewing the HTML source of their site is a violation of copyright. Poorly timed April Fools joke, or just some fancy lawyering?
Google

Journal SPAM: Google Hacked? Spam Sites Infesting Search Results 207

Journal by Jeremiah Cornelius

The Google Watchdog blog is reporting that "Spam and virus sites infesting the Google SERPs in several categories" and speculates, ...Google's own index has been hacked. The circumvention of a guideline normally picked up by the Googlebot quickly is worrisome. The fact that none of the sites have real content and don't appear to even be hosted anywhere is even more scary. How did
Space

Submission + - NASA think tank to be shut down

Submitted by
Matthew Sparkes
Matthew Sparkes writes: "NASA will likely shut down its Institute for Advanced Concepts, which funds research into futuristic ideas in spaceflight and aeronautics. The move highlights the budget problems the agency is facing as it struggles to retire the space shuttles and develop a replacement. The institute receives $4 million per year from NASA, whose annual budget is $17 billion. Most of that is used to fund research into innovative technologies; recent grants include the conceptual development of spacecraft that could surf the solar system on magnetic fields, motion-sensitive spacesuits that could generate power and tiny, spherical robots that could explore Mars."

Revolution Worldwide Launch Possible 77

Posted by Zonk from the anything-is-possible dept.
hammersuit writes "GameDaily Biz reports that a Nintendo Revolution simultaneous global launch is still in the cards. From the article: 'Bloomberg.com suggested that Nintendo would avoid a global launch. However, a Nintendo representative today said that those comments were misinterpreted. 'The comments have been taken out of context,' said the Nintendo spokesperson. 'What he's actually saying is that we're not holding a worldwide launch just because everyone else is doing one too. It's just another re-iteration of the fact that we're not looking at what Sony or Microsoft are doing.'"

Region-free PS3 356

Posted by samzenpus from the anytime-anywhere dept.
An anonymous reader writes "IGN writes that "In a QA session following the platform keynote address at GDC 2006 this morning, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios President Phil Harrison confirmed what was heavily demanded for import gamers all over the world and yet previously thought unthinkable for a major corporation: the PS3 will be region-free for gaming." There's no chance that the MPAA members would allow the same for movies but at least it's a step in the right direction."

DoJ Following Porn Blocker Advances? 265

Posted by Zonk from the dirty-little-program dept.
GreedyCapitalist writes "A new filter called iShield is able to recognize porn images based on the content of the image (other filters look at URLs and text) and according to PC Magazine, it is very effective. The next generation will probably be even better -- which highlights the retarding effect regulation has on technological progress - if we relied solely on government to ban 'inappropriate' content from the web, we'd never know what solutions the market might come up with. Will the DOJ (which argues that porn filters don't work) take note of filtering innovation or continue its quest for censorship?"

Google Avoids Surrendering Search Info 226

Posted by Zonk from the dodged-that-bullet dept.
Mercury News has details of a San Francisco judge's decision that Google should give the DoJ some details on its search engine, but is not required to turn over records to the government. From the article: "McElvain emphasized the study would be more meaningful if it included search requests processed by Google, which by some estimates fields nearly half of all online queries in the United States. Ware concurred with the Justice Department on that point, writing in his order that 'the government's study may be significantly hampered if it did not have access to some information from the most often used search engine.' But Ware said the government didn't clearly explain why it needed a list of search requests to conduct its study, prompting him to conclude the Web site addresses would be adequate." Reaction to the news is available on the Google Blog.

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Coming Soon to PCs 209

Posted by Zonk from the not-that-there's-anything-to-play dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A Yahoo! news piece has some sales details for the upcoming Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players. They also have some details on disc drives that read the new formats." From the article: "Sony has priced its first desktop computer that will have a Blu-ray Disc burner. The drive will be able to write to 25GB and 50GB BD-RE (rewritable) and BD-R (write once) discs. Sony will start selling 25GB BD-RE and BD-R discs in April for $20 and $25 respectively and 50GB capacity versions of the same discs later in the year for $48 and $60 respectively. The Vaio RC will be launched in 'early summer' and will cost around $2300. At the CeBIT show in Germany last week, Sony announced plans for a Vaio notebook with a Blu-ray Disc drive."

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