Comment Addendum (Score 2, Funny) 282
Sec 12 Para 2: "Vista startup sound must now be sound of someone getting spanked."
Submission + - Student Blogger Loses Small Claims Defamation Case
An anonymous reader writes: Yaman Salahi, a UC Berkeley student and blogger, lost a lawsuit brought against him by Lee Kaplan, a journalist for FrontPageMag.com. Kaplan had sued Salahi for tortious business interference and libel in a California small claims court suit in response to a blog Salahi had set-up about him called "Lee Kaplan Watch." Judge Marshall Whitley presided over the appeal on June 8, 2007, and entered his ruling on June 13, 2007 in favor of the plaintiff, asking that Salahi pay him $7,500 (the maximum in small claims court) plus court fees. No written opinion was offered with the decision, though all other court filings are available here. From Salahi's update on the blog:
What does this mean for bloggers' rights, in general? Should defamation cases be heard before small claims court in the first place? What are bloggers with little or no available resources to do when they are targeted for their political slant?"...because [Kaplan] sued me in small claims court, I did not have the protections of the anti-SLAPP [Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Policy] statute. I initially did not have the protection of a lawyer, nor did I have the assurances that the trial would be conducted with consistency and integrity, ensuring me my due process rights, because the standards for acceptable evidence are much lower and more informal for small claims court than they are for real courts. Furthermore, I will never know why I lost the initial hearing, or why I lost the appeal, because small claims judges are not obligated to release written opinions with their rulings.... I will never have the opportunity to take this to a real appellate court where my first amendment rights might be protected."
Feed Thai insurgents move to keyless-entry bombs (theregister.com)
Cellphone devices blocked by security forces
Insurgents in southern Thailand have begun using keyless-entry systems from cars to trigger bomb explosions after authorities took to blocking mobile-phone signals.
Feed Review: Illustrator CS3 (macworld.com)
Feed Will A123 get into plug-n-play plug-in hybrids? (com.com)
Blog: Hot battery maker in deal to get battery installer
Feed SimpleCenter hopes open source community will give back (newsforge.com)
Universal Electronics Inc. (UEI), best known for its line of universal remote controls, also sells SimpleCenter, an all-in-one application for Windows PCs that ties together in a single interface all of a user's multimedia devices and software. It streamlines the management of photos, music, and movies, and even acts as a Universal Plug and Play server so you can stream your files to any device on your home network, while the software converts files to the proper format for the device. Recently, UEI released the basic version of SimpleCenter under the terms of the GNU General Public License in order to take advantage of the community's ability to make the software better faster than the company can do it alone.
Feed Lengthy nanotube crop may mean super-strong fibres (pheedo.com)
A chemical catalyst that grows carbon nanotubes to unprecedented lengths could aid efforts to make super-strong cables using the molecules
Submission + - MS Mulling Changes to Thwart .ANI-type Attacks
Scada Moosh writes: ZDNet has a story about the lessons Microsoft learned from the recent animated cursor (.ani) attacks and some of the broad changes being made to flag these types of vulnerability ahead of time. The changes include a possible addition to the list of banned API function calls, more aggressive checks for buffer overruns and enhancements to existing fuzz testing tools.
Submission + - Cell Phones aren't killing bees after all
radioweather writes: "A couple of weeks ago, there was a nutty idea discussed in
The Independent that claimed the electromagnetic radiation from cell phones
was causing bees to become disoriented, which prevented them from returning to
the hive, and they died. The
flimsy cell phone argument was used to explain Colony Collapse Disorder.
Today the LA Times reports that researchers at UC San Francisco have uncovered what they believe to be the real culprit: a parasitic fungus. Other researchers said Wednesday that they too had found the fungus, a single-celled parasite called Nosema ceranae, in affected hives from around the country."
Today the LA Times reports that researchers at UC San Francisco have uncovered what they believe to be the real culprit: a parasitic fungus. Other researchers said Wednesday that they too had found the fungus, a single-celled parasite called Nosema ceranae, in affected hives from around the country."
Submission + - Jobs Says People Don't Want to 'Rent' Music
eldavojohn writes: "PhysOrg is running a piece on a recent speech by Apple CEO Steve Jobs about DRM free music. While we know that Jobs is a self proclaimed proponent of DRM free music who's not all talk, he's now said that "by the end of this year, over half of the songs we offer on iTunes we believe will be in DRM-free versions. I think we're going to achieve that." Jobs pointed out what's obvious to us, the consumers, but isn't obvious to the music industry — "People want to own their music." He also dismissed subscription based music as a failure & claimed a lot of other music labels are intrigued by the EMI deal. There's no doubt in my mind that everyone will be watching EMI's cash flow very carefully with the utmost scrutiny in these coming quarters. If he succeeds in his crusade, I may find myself finally purchasing music on digital non-compact disc based media."
Feed Team Velozzi creating sexy Automotive X-Prize participant (engadget.com)
Filed under: Transportation
While we've seen a couple of entrants into the Automotive X-Prize competition so far, Team Velozzi has announced a showstopper of a vehicle that will reportedly be created for the contest. Aiming to craft a vehicle that gets around 200 miles-per-gallon and receives locomotion from potent Li-ion batteries, the R&D group's potential participant currently resembles vehicles from some of the more exotic of automakers. Curiously, the company's website insinuates that it wants the vehicle to be "mainstream," but with specs consisting of a full carbon-fiber body / chassis, Brembo brakes and racing suspension, a multi-format hybrid energy system, "high-end interior," a Weismann F1 transmission, and twin AC electric engines, we can't exactly imagine this supercar fitting into the average joe's (or jane's) budget. Still, there's no denying the sexy regardless of cost, so be sure to hit the links below to get a more in-depth view of Velozzi's forthcoming automobile.[Via AutoblogGreen]
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Submission + - The world's longest carbon nanotube
Roland Piquepaille writes: "As you probably know, carbon nanotubes have very interesting mechanical, electrical and optical properties. But they are 'small.' Now, researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have developed a process to build extremely long aligned carbon nanotube arrays. They've been able to produce 18-mm-long carbon nanotubes which might be spun into nanofibers. Such electrically conductive fibers could one day replace copper wires. The researchers say their nanofibers could be used for applications such as nanomedicine, aerospace and electronics. Read more for additional references and an illustration showing a CNT array image of UC's mission statement."
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