tanman writes "A student at the Houston-area Clements High School was arrested, sent to an "Alternative Education Center" and banned from graduation after school officials found he created a video game map of his school. School district police arrested the teen and searched his home where they confiscated a hammer as a 'potential weapon'. ' "They decided he was a terroristic threat," said one source close to the district's investigation.' With an upcoming May 12 school board election, this issue has quickly become political, with school board members involved in the appeal accusing each other of pandering to the Chinese community in an attempt to gain votes."

An anonymous reader writes "The RIAA is once again at their old tricks. The band Nine Inch Nails has intentionally 'leaked' songs via USB keys hidden at restrooms during their current European tour. Sites hosting the songs are now being sent cease and desist orders. 'Ironically, with its numerous pirated downloads available, the whole album has not leaked yet. According to a source, the only leaks are the ones Reznor approved himself. And whether he realizes it or not, Reznor may be building a new option for presenting music that augments the existing CD/tour scenario.'"

Krish writes "Providers like Skype, Yahoo, Net2phone, Dialpad, etc. will not be able to offer VOIP in India under the proposed govt. clampdown. BPOs and other call centers will face the axe if they use any of the VOIP services provided by the above companies. It is not clear if this clampdown will affect regular home users."

eldavojohn writes "Richard Berk, a University of Pennsylvania criminologist, has worked with authorities to develop a software tool that predicts who will commit homicide. I could not find any papers published on this topic by Berk, nor any site stating what specific Bayesian / decision tree algorithm / neural net is being implemented." From the article: "The tool works by plugging 30 to 40 variables into a computerized checklist, which in turn produces a score associated with future lethality. 'You can imagine the indicators that might incline someone toward violence: youth; having committed a serious crime at an early age; being a man rather than a woman, and so on. Each, by itself, probably isn't going to make a person pull the trigger. But put them all together and you've got a perfect storm of forces for violence,' Berk said. Asked which, if any, indicators stood out as reliable predicators of homicide, Berk pointed to one in particular: youthful exposure to violence." The software is to enter clinical trials next spring in the Philadelphia probation department. Its intent is to serve as a kind of triage: to let probation caseworkers concentrate most of their effort on the former offenders most likely to be most dangerous.