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The Media

Submission + - Alternative Light Bulb Challenge in CA

Submitted by
sidebug
sidebug writes: "Looks like it may be time to take a serious look at an Incandescent vs. CFL vs. LED Light Bulb Challenge. California state assemblyman Lloyd Levin wants to ban the incandescent light bulb in California by 2012, and CA governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has already sided with Levin on progressive environmental bills, including legislation requiring supermarkets in the state to recycle plastic bags. With CFLs and LEDs both producing more efficient and cost-effective light than their Incandescent alternatives, it's never been a better time to get to the bottom of what's the best light bulb out there."
Music

Submission + - Teen sues record industry

Submitted by
geobeck
geobeck writes: "Sixteen-year-old Robert Santangelo, who was sued for file sharing when he was eleven, is fighting back. His suit claims that the recording industry has "engaged in a wide-ranging conspiracy to defraud the courts of the United States", and accuses them of antitrust violations and extortion.

Robert is not the first Santangelo to be sued. In 2005, the recording industry sued his mother Patti, but dropped the charges when it became apparent that she didn't even know how to turn on a computer. His sister Michelle, now 20, is on the hook for $30k in summary judgment charges because she did not respond to a similar suit filed against her."
Announcements

Submission + - Open source SecondLife *simulator* project

Submitted by
thepropsman
thepropsman writes: "From 3pointD, The code for the roll-your-own sim is now available as an open-source project, OpenSim, on the OpenSecondLife Web site. "The simulator does not interact with SL's asset server in any way, supports server-side scripting via Lua, and uses simple flat files to store asset information at this point," Christian writes. Check in with him or OpenSim if you want to lend a hand."
The Courts

Submission + - Intellectual Property running amok

Submitted by kocsonya
kocsonya writes: According to this article on ABC Australia Indonesia is not too happy that an Australia company, CSL developed a vaccine against the H5N1 birdflu virus (which can be deadly to humans). Apparently Indonesia asserts that CSL should have sought permission from Indonesia to develop the vaccine because "Indonesia is seeking intellectual property rights over the Indonesian strain of the virus on which the vaccine is based". Cool, soon countries can build up an IP portfolio on strains of viruses and bacteria and cross-licence it — a Hong Kong flu strain license against your Ross River Fever license. The question arises, though, whose intellectual product was a virus occuring in nature? Should we then sue the owner of such intellectual property for willfully endangering the public with their "invention"?
Wii

Submission + - Woman dies trying to win a Wii

Submitted by Storlek
Storlek writes: A radio station contest to "hold your wee for a Wii" ended abruptly after a woman died of water intoxication as a result of it. Contest participants were given bottles of water to drink, and the contestant who could refrain from going to the bathroom the longest was promised a Wii console. The woman's death has prompted the station to cancel the show and fire ten people.
Space

Submission + - Navy Gets 8-megajoule Rail Gun Working

Submitted by
prototypo
prototypo writes: "The Fredericksburg, Virginia-based Free Lance-Star newspaper is reporting that the Navy Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Virginia has successfully demonstrated an 8-megajoule electromagnetic rail gun. A 32-megajoule version is due to be tested in June. A 64-megajoule version is anticipated to extend the range of naval gunfire (currently about 15 nautical miles for a 5-inch naval gun) to more than 200 nautical miles by 2020. The projectiles are small, but go so fast that have enough kinetic punch to replace a Tomahawk missile at a fraction of the cost. In the final version, they will apex at 95 miles altitude, well into space. These systems were intially part of Reagan's SDI program ("Star Wars"). An interesting tidbit in the article is that the rail gun is only expected to fire ten times or less per day, presumably because of the amount of electricity needed. I guess we now need a warp core to power them :)"
Security

Submission + - Six Rootkit Detectores To Protect Your PC

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: InformationWeek has a review of 6 rootkit detectors.This issue became big last year when Sony released some music CDs which came with a rootkit that silently burrowed into PCs. This review looks at how you can block rootkits and protect your machine using F-Secure Backlight, IceSword, RKDetector, RootkitBuster, RootkitRevealer, and Rookit Unhooker.

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