Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Music

Submission + - EMI may cut funding to IFPI, RIAA (arstechnica.com) 1

Submitted by Teen Bainwolf
Teen Bainwolf writes: Big Four record label EMI is reportedly considering a big cut in its funding for the IFPI and RIAA. Each of the labels reportedly contributed over $130 million per year to fund industry trade groups, and EMI apparently believes that money could be better spent elsewhere. 'One of the chief activities of the RIAA is coordinating the Big Four labels' legal campaign, and those thousands of lawsuits have done nothing but generate ill will from record fans, while costing the labels millions of dollars and doing little (if anything) to actually reduce the amount of file-sharing going on. In fact, the RIAA freely admits that the legal campaign is a real money pit, and EMI's new ownership may be very leery of continuing to pour money down that particular rat hole.
Networking

Submission + - Flexible optic fiber for "last mile" conne

Submitted by bn0p
bn0p writes: According to an article on Ars Technica, a Korean company has developed a low-cost, flexible, plastic optical fiber that could help solve the "last mile" problem and bring 2.5 Gbps (bits per second) connections to homes and apartments. While not as fast as glass fiber, it is significantly faster than the copper connections in use today.

In related news, Corning recently announced a flexible glass fiber that can be bent repeatedly without losing signal strength. The Corning fiber incorporates nanostructures in the cladding of the fiber that act as "light guardrails" that keep the light in the fiber. The glass fiber could be as much as four times faster than plastic fiber.

Neither fiber is available commercially yet, but both should help improve data rates to the home when they are deployed.
Movies

Truth in Ratings Act Reintroduced 302

Posted by samzenpus from the think-of-the-children dept.
dropgoal writes "Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas (and GOP presidential candidate) has reintroduced the Truth in Ratings Act. Like the previous version that failed to pass last year, Sen. Brownback's bill would make the FTC responsible for overseeing the video game ratings system and possibly result in a unified ratings system for games, movies, and TV. The ESRB would also have to review all game footage before issuing a rating. Currently, the ESRB hands out ratings after viewing a reel with representative content prepared by the developers. Sen. Brownback thinks that's not enough. 'Video game reviewers should be required to review the entire content of a game to ensure the accuracy of the rating. The current video game ratings system is not as accurate as it could be because reviewers do not see the full content of games and do not even play the games they rate', he said."

Slashdot Top Deals

Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket. -- George Orwell

Close