Slashdot Mirror

anomalous cohort writes "Washington DC judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly announced during the ongoing Microsoft antitrust hearings that their documentation is unfit for US consumption. This is relevant in an antitrust hearing as poor documentation on how to inter-operate with Microsoft's products is seen as an unfair barrier to entry for companies who compete with Microsoft. Others see this as yet another example of their crumbling hegemony or indolence as their empire burns."

Toramir writes "Citizens of the Russian town Chelyabinsk calculated when the satellite, QuickBird, which takes images for Google Earth and Google Maps, would cross above their city and used people to make a giant smiley face. A rock concert on the main square attracted many people and everyone got a yellow cape. It looks like someone at Google was quicker than usual to put up the new data. Maybe Google likes the idea of an entire town working hard to get its 15 minutes of fame. The article has a screenshot of Google Maps and images taken directly at the event."

Adam Korbitz writes with an excerpt from his blog on an exciting discovery in space: "A team of researchers led by Spanish scientists has published their discovery of the complex molecule naphthalene in an interstellar star-forming cloud, indicating many prebiotic organic molecules necessary for life as we know it could have been present when our own solar system formed. According to the new research — published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters — the naphthalene molecules were discovered 700 light-years from Earth in a star-forming region of the constellation Perseus, in the direction of the star Cernis 52."

Adam Korbitz writes with an excerpt from his blog on an exciting discovery in space: "A team of researchers led by Spanish scientists has published their discovery of the complex molecule naphthalene in an interstellar star-forming cloud, indicating many prebiotic organic molecules necessary for life as we know it could have been present when our own solar system formed. According to the new research — published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters — the naphthalene molecules were discovered 700 light-years from Earth in a star-forming region of the constellation Perseus, in the direction of the star Cernis 52."

Last week Metallica released a new album, Death Magnetic, on traditional CDs as well as downloadable content for Guitar Hero III. Fans quickly noticed that the sound quality on the CD version was noticeably below-par, thanks to the recording studio's decision to sacrifice range for loudness. However, the tracks released for Guitar Hero III made no such sacrifice, as proved by Mastering Engineer Ian Shepherd. NME found an audio clip comparing the two tracks. This comes alongside statements from Activision claiming that Aerosmith's recent venture into Guitar Hero is generating more success for the band than their actual albums.

Shin-LaC writes "In a post on their official blog, WebKit developers introduced the 'next generation' of their JavaScript engine, SquirrelFish Extreme, claimed to be twice as fast as its predecessor. The post lists several changes contributing to the performance improvements, including 'bytecode optimization,' a 'polymorphic inline cache' (which sounds similar to V8's 'hidden class transitions'), and a 'context threaded JIT' compiler which generates native code (currently only for x86 processors), and is also applied to regular expressions. The new JavaScript engine is already available in the latest WebKit nightly builds. According to comparative benchmarks, the new engine is around 35% faster than the V8 engine recently introduced in Google Chrome, and 55% faster than Mozilla's TraceMonkey."

An anonymous reader writes "Ray Beckerman, known for questioning the RIAAs legal tactics (also for frequent Slashdot contributions), was sued by the RIAA over his blog Recording Industry vs. People. In question is the 'vexatious' claims that the RIAAs legal tactics is a 'sham.' Beckerman is quoted as saying that the litigation against him is 'frivolous and irresponsible.'"

Robert Hodges, CTO of Continuent, has an interesting blog entry about a new approach to database replication that they are undertaking. The new approach aims to provide easier access to replication for low-end Oracle users in addition to the alpha offering they already have for MySQL. "It's not a coincidence that we chose to implement MySQL and Oracle replication at the same time. MySQL has revolutionized the simplicity and accessibility of databases in general and replication in particular. For example, MySQL users have created cost-effective read scaling solutions using master/slave replication for years. MySQL replication is not free of problems, but there is no question MySQL AB helped by the community got a lot of the basics really right. On the other hand, Oracle replication products offer state-of-the-art solutions for availability, heterogeneous replication, application upgrade, and other problems, albeit for high-end users. For example, Oracle Streams and Golden Gate TDM offer very advanced solutions to the problem of data migration with minimal downtime. The big problem with these solutions is not capabilities but administrative complexity and cost."

DaveyJJ sends news of yet another rejection of an iPhone app by Apple, with perhaps a chilling twist for potential developers of productivity or utility apps. John Gruber of Daring Fireball writes: "Let's be clear: forbidding 'duplication of functionality' is forbidding competition. The point of competition is to do the same thing, but better." Paul Kafasis (co-founder of Rogue Amoeba Software) makes the point that this action by Apple will scare talented developers away from the iPhone platform. And Dave Weiner argues that the iPhone isn't a "platform" at all: "The idea that it's a platform should mean no individual or company has the power to turn you off."

narramissic writes "Google began running a live test last year that lets people rank and remove search engine results and comment on them. Testers were presented with different variations of the experiment, which the company first publicly detailed about two weeks ago in an official blog posting. For example, in one version of the test, people can only remove results, while in another they can append comments that only they can see, said Google software engineer Matt Cutts. But while implementing these features permanently would be a major step for Google in giving more participation to its users, the company remains undecided. 'It's a really fun experiment. I can't say for sure whether it will go live for everybody because we're always running a ton of experiments. Only some of those, the ones that are being very successful, are launched live for everybody,' said Cutts. In the meantime, Google is collecting data that offers some interesting search quality insights."

narramissic writes "Google began running a live test last year that lets people rank and remove search engine results and comment on them. Testers were presented with different variations of the experiment, which the company first publicly detailed about two weeks ago in an official blog posting. For example, in one version of the test, people can only remove results, while in another they can append comments that only they can see, said Google software engineer Matt Cutts. But while implementing these features permanently would be a major step for Google in giving more participation to its users, the company remains undecided. 'It's a really fun experiment. I can't say for sure whether it will go live for everybody because we're always running a ton of experiments. Only some of those, the ones that are being very successful, are launched live for everybody,' said Cutts. In the meantime, Google is collecting data that offers some interesting search quality insights."

dominique_cimafranca writes "Shawn Frayne, a 28-year old inventor, has developed a small wind-powered generator that can be used to power small appliances in developing countries. Unlike the typical propeller design one expects of wind generators, the windbelt uses the oscillation of a membrane that follows the vibration of bridge. The oscillation drives small magnets which generate the electricity. From the article: 'Frayne's device, which he calls a Windbelt, is a taut membrane fitted with a pair of magnets that oscillate between metal coils. Prototypes have generated 40 milliwatts in 10-mph slivers of wind, making his device 10 to 30 times as efficient as the best microturbines. Frayne envisions the Windbelt costing a few dollars and replacing kerosene lamps in Haitian homes.'"

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "J. K. Rowling didn't make enough money on Harry Potter, so she had to make sure that the 'Harry Potter Lexicon' was shut down. After a trial in Manhattan in Warner Bros. v. RDR Books, she won, getting the judge to agree with her (and her friends at Warner Bros. Entertainment) that the 'Lexicon' did not qualify for fair use protection. In a 68-page decision (PDF) the judge concluded that the Lexicon did a little too much 'verbatim copying,' competed with Ms. Rowling's planned encyclopedia, and might compete with her exploitation of songs and poems from the Harry Potter books, although she never made any such claim in presenting her evidence. The judge awarded her $6,750 and granted her an injunction that would prevent the 'Lexicon' from seeing the light of day." Groklaw has an exhaustive discussion of the judgement.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "J. K. Rowling didn't make enough money on Harry Potter, so she had to make sure that the 'Harry Potter Lexicon' was shut down. After a trial in Manhattan in Warner Bros. v. RDR Books, she won, getting the judge to agree with her (and her friends at Warner Bros. Entertainment) that the 'Lexicon' did not qualify for fair use protection. In a 68-page decision (PDF) the judge concluded that the Lexicon did a little too much 'verbatim copying,' competed with Ms. Rowling's planned encyclopedia, and might compete with her exploitation of songs and poems from the Harry Potter books, although she never made any such claim in presenting her evidence. The judge awarded her $6,750 and granted her an injunction that would prevent the 'Lexicon' from seeing the light of day." Groklaw has an exhaustive discussion of the judgement.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "An anonymous University of Michigan student, targeted by the RIAA as a 'John Doe,' is asking for the RIAA's investigator, SafeNet (formerly MediaSentry), to be prosecuted criminally for a pattern of felonies in Michigan. Known to Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth — the agency regulating private investigators in that state — only as 'Case Number 162983070,' the student has pointed out that the law has been clear in Michigan for years that computer forensics activities of the type practiced by Safenet require an investigator's license. This follows the submissions by other 'John Does' establishing that SafeNet's changing and inconsistent excuses fail to justify its conduct, and that Michigan's legislature and governor have backed the agency's position that an investigator's license was required." SafeNet/MediaSentry defended their actions by claiming their company simply "records public information available to millions of users. If private investigator licenses were required to do what MediaSentry does, every user on Limewire and other illegal p2p networks would be required to have a license. Indeed, every search engine and Internet user would be required to have a private investigator license if MediaSentry needs one."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "An anonymous University of Michigan student, targeted by the RIAA as a 'John Doe,' is asking for the RIAA's investigator, SafeNet (formerly MediaSentry), to be prosecuted criminally for a pattern of felonies in Michigan. Known to Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth — the agency regulating private investigators in that state — only as 'Case Number 162983070,' the student has pointed out that the law has been clear in Michigan for years that computer forensics activities of the type practiced by Safenet require an investigator's license. This follows the submissions by other 'John Does' establishing that SafeNet's changing and inconsistent excuses fail to justify its conduct, and that Michigan's legislature and governor have backed the agency's position that an investigator's license was required." SafeNet/MediaSentry defended their actions by claiming their company simply "records public information available to millions of users. If private investigator licenses were required to do what MediaSentry does, every user on Limewire and other illegal p2p networks would be required to have a license. Indeed, every search engine and Internet user would be required to have a private investigator license if MediaSentry needs one."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "An anonymous University of Michigan student, targeted by the RIAA as a 'John Doe,' is asking for the RIAA's investigator, SafeNet (formerly MediaSentry), to be prosecuted criminally for a pattern of felonies in Michigan. Known to Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth — the agency regulating private investigators in that state — only as 'Case Number 162983070,' the student has pointed out that the law has been clear in Michigan for years that computer forensics activities of the type practiced by Safenet require an investigator's license. This follows the submissions by other 'John Does' establishing that SafeNet's changing and inconsistent excuses fail to justify its conduct, and that Michigan's legislature and governor have backed the agency's position that an investigator's license was required." SafeNet/MediaSentry defended their actions by claiming their company simply "records public information available to millions of users. If private investigator licenses were required to do what MediaSentry does, every user on Limewire and other illegal p2p networks would be required to have a license. Indeed, every search engine and Internet user would be required to have a private investigator license if MediaSentry needs one."

An anonymous reader writes "The BBC reports on some changes to the data retention policy at Google in response to pressure from European authorities, but also included in the article is information about why Google claims they need to retain non-anonymised data for so long. Improving services, sure, but preventing fraud? Aiding 'valid legal orders'?" Reader s0ckratees points to some commentary on the change at Google's official blog. The upshot: IP addresses in Google's logs will be anonymized after nine months, rather than 18 as previously.

Adam Korbitz writes "New Scientist and Science Daily are reporting the results of an intriguing experiment in which scientists launched tardigrades or 'water bears' — tiny invertebrates about one millimeter long — into space onboard the European Space Agency's FOTON-M3 spacecraft. After 10 days in the vacuum of space, the satellite returned to Earth and the tardigrades were recovered. The tardigrades survived the vacuum just fine, but exposure to the Sun's ultraviolet radiation proved deadly for most of the water bears. However, some did survive. The tardigrades are the first animals to have survived such an experiment, a feat previously achieved only by lichens and bacteria."

hhavensteincw writes "On Monday Google detailed new plans to digitize millions of newspaper pages with articles, photographs, and headlines intact so they can be accessed and searched online. 'Around the globe, we estimate that there are billions of news pages containing every story ever written,' Google said in a blog post. 'It's our goal to help readers find all of them, from the smallest local weekly paper up to the largest national daily.' For example, Google noted the availability of an original article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from 1969 about the landing on the moon." When you search the news archive for, e.g., "Chicago fire" or "Rosenberg trial," a significant fraction of the result pages cost money to view.

Raindeer writes to share his article about peering and transit between networks, which begins: "In 2005, AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre famously told BusinessWeek, 'What they [Google, Vonage, and others] would like to do is to use my pipes free. But I ain't going to let them do that...Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?' The story of how the Internet is structured economically is not so much a story about net neutrality, but rather it's a story about how ISPs actually do use AT&T's pipes for free, and about why AT&T actually wants them to do so. These inter-ISP sharing arrangements are known as 'peering' or 'transit,' and they are the two mechanisms that underlie the interconnection of networks that form the Internet. In this article, I'll take a look at the economics of peering and transit in order to give you a better sense of how traffic flows from point A to point B on the Internet, and how it does so mostly without problems, despite the fact that the Internet is a patchwork quilt of networks run by companies, schools, and governments."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "David Kravets of Wired.com, who provided in-person gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Capitol v. Thomas trial last year, takes stock of the RIAA's 5-year-old litigation campaign, concluding it is 'at a crossroads', and noting that 'billions of copies of copyrighted songs are now changing hands each year on file sharing services. All the while, some of the most fundamental legal questions surrounding the legality of file sharing have gone unanswered. Even the future of the RIAA's only jury trial victory — against Minnesota mother Jammie Thomas — is in doubt. Some are wondering if the campaign has shaped up as an utter failure.'"

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "David Kravets of Wired.com, who provided in-person gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Capitol v. Thomas trial last year, takes stock of the RIAA's 5-year-old litigation campaign, concluding it is 'at a crossroads', and noting that 'billions of copies of copyrighted songs are now changing hands each year on file sharing services. All the while, some of the most fundamental legal questions surrounding the legality of file sharing have gone unanswered. Even the future of the RIAA's only jury trial victory — against Minnesota mother Jammie Thomas — is in doubt. Some are wondering if the campaign has shaped up as an utter failure.'"

centuren writes "In response to the reaction to Chrome's terms of service, Google has truncated the offending Section 11, apologizing for the oversight. The new Section 11 contains only the first sentence included in their Universal Terms of Service, now stating: 'You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.'"

snydeq writes "Consuming twice as much RAM as Firefox and saturating the CPU with nearly six times as many execution threads, Microsoft's latest beta release of Internet Explorer 8 is in fact more demanding on your PC than Windows XP itself, research firm Devil Mountain Software found in performance tests. According to the firm, which operates a community-based testing network, IE8 Beta 2 consumed 380MB of RAM and spawned 171 concurrent threads during a multi-tab browsing test of popular Web destinations. InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy speculates that Microsoft may be designing IE8 for the multicore future. But until your machine sports four or eight discrete processing cores, IE8 will remain 'porcine,' Devil Mountain's Craig Barth says."

snydeq writes "Consuming twice as much RAM as Firefox and saturating the CPU with nearly six times as many execution threads, Microsoft's latest beta release of Internet Explorer 8 is in fact more demanding on your PC than Windows XP itself, research firm Devil Mountain Software found in performance tests. According to the firm, which operates a community-based testing network, IE8 Beta 2 consumed 380MB of RAM and spawned 171 concurrent threads during a multi-tab browsing test of popular Web destinations. InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy speculates that Microsoft may be designing IE8 for the multicore future. But until your machine sports four or eight discrete processing cores, IE8 will remain 'porcine,' Devil Mountain's Craig Barth says."

rjwoodhead writes "This past weekend, my entire family learned what it's like to float in freefall aboard G-Force One (recently featured on the Mythbusters' Moon Hoax show). Being science-lovers, we wanted to do some kind of original experiment. So we decided to test whether the Diet Coke & Mentos reaction was affected by the lack of bubble convection in microgravity. At the link you can find the story of how the experiment evolved and how we talked Space Adventures into letting us fool around with sticky and corrosive cola and candy inside their nice clean airplane, as well as high-speed video of the results."

An anonymous reader writes "A group of Canadian engineering students was one of 10 teams to win a $275,000 prize from internet search giant Google Inc. Their program, Ecorio, gives users the ability to reduce their environmental footprint with tools that provide transit options for trips, invest in carbon reduction projects, and share their tips with other users. Other winners included a taxi location app, a price comparison app, and a settings manager than changes your settings based on your location." Google has also started talking about their plans for Android Market, which is similar to the App store used for the iPhone. Ars Technica's coverage points out a blog post by Google's Eric Chu which notes that early handsets running Android will have a beta version of Android Market enabled.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A California copyright infringement case brought by an adult video maker against a video sharing web site, Veoh Networks, has been thrown out, based upon the 'safe harbor' provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ('DMCA'). In a 33-page decision (PDF), the Court concluded that Veoh was covered by the DMCA, and had carried out its duties to comply with takedown notices in a reasonable manner. The Court rejected the plaintiff's arguments showing possible ways that users could do an end-around, saying that the law requires 'reasonable' compliance, rather than perfection, and noted that the DMCA is 'designed to facilitate the robust development and world-wide expansion of electronic commerce, communications, research, development, and education in the digital age'."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A California copyright infringement case brought by an adult video maker against a video sharing web site, Veoh Networks, has been thrown out, based upon the 'safe harbor' provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ('DMCA'). In a 33-page decision (PDF), the Court concluded that Veoh was covered by the DMCA, and had carried out its duties to comply with takedown notices in a reasonable manner. The Court rejected the plaintiff's arguments showing possible ways that users could do an end-around, saying that the law requires 'reasonable' compliance, rather than perfection, and noted that the DMCA is 'designed to facilitate the robust development and world-wide expansion of electronic commerce, communications, research, development, and education in the digital age'."

Riding with Robots writes "The robotic geologist Opportunity has nearly reached the rim of Victoria Crater, which it is leaving after a year of exploration inside. Rover handlers decided to abandon attempts to approach the crater's cliff walls when they saw a power spike similar to the one that preceded a broken wheel on its twin, Spirit. Opportunity is already making do with a stuck robotic arm. The mission's manager said, 'Both rovers show signs of aging, but they are both still capable of exciting exploration and scientific discovery.' Opportunity is set to continue trekking across the Meridiani Plains of Mars, even though its wheels have already seen 10 times the use they were designed for. Meanwhile, Spirit has survived yet another harsh Martian winter to produce another striking panorama." Adam Korbitz notes other Mars-related news that funding has been approved for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Genomes (SETG) Project. The project was one of 15 selected to receive funds through a NASA research opportunity program. The stated goal of the proposal is to "develop a PCR detector for in situ analysis on other planets, most immediately, Mars. This instrument is so sensitive it should allow the detection very low levels of microbial life on Mars, and will determine its phylogenetic position by analysis of the DNA sequence of the genes detected in situ."

Ian Lamont writes "Google is testing functionality that lets users tinker with query results by re-ranking them and commenting on them. The reason for the commenting feature: 'We're just curious to see how it will be used,' according to a Google engineer quoted in the article. The company has posted screenshots of some of the experiments, which also involve highlighting certain results as well as stems and synonyms within results. Google declined to answer any questions about the experiments, and it's not known whether Google would factor the rearranging of results by users into the overall computation for ranking results for those specific queries. It's also not clear whether search result comments would be made available to anyone to read."

An anonymous reader writes "Canadian telco TELUS sold a bunch of (expensive) Unlimited EV-DO aircard accounts last winter and are now summarily canceling them or forcing people to switch to much less valuable plans. TELUS is citing 'Violations,' but their Terms Of Service (see #5) are utterly vague and self-contradictory. The TELUS plans were marketed as being unlimited, without the soft/hard caps that the other providers had at the time. They were purchased by a lot of rural Canadians who had no other choice except dialup. Now TELUS is forcing everyone to switch from a $75 Unlimited plan to a $65 1GB plan, and canceling those who won't switch. Have a look at the thread at Howardforums, a discussion of the TELUS ToS (in red at the bottom), an EV-DO blogger who's been a victim, a post at Electronista, and of course Verizon getting fined for doing the same thing! Michael Geist has taken an interest as well."

dominique_cimafranca notes a story up at the Daily Mail in the UK about a partially paralyzed man who is able to walk again using an exoskeleton frame. The article goes a bit far in comparing the device to Robocop, but it does show pictures of the man, paralyzed for the last 20 years, regaining some use of his legs. Quoting: "The device, called ReWalk, is the brainchild of engineer Amit Goffer, founder of Argo Medical Technologies, a small Israeli high-tech company. Something of a mix between the exoskeleton of a crustacean and the suit worn by Robocop, ReWalk helps paraplegics — people paralyzed below the waist — to stand, walk and climb stairs. The system, which requires crutches to help with balance, consists of motorized leg supports, body sensors and a back pack containing a computerized control box and rechargeable batteries."

Ian Lamont writes "Google has dropped Bluetooth and the GTalkService instant messaging APIs from the set of tools for Android 1.0, but says that handsets using the Android OS will work with other Bluetooth devices such as headsets. According to a post on the official Android developer blog, Google dropped the Bluetooth API from the mobile OS because 'we plain ran out of time.' The GTalkService API was removed because of security concerns that included the possibility of applications revealing more details about users than they might want to let out, such as their real names and e-mail addresses."

CWmike writes "Google looks as if it's on top of the world right now, holding an ever-increasing lion's share of the search market. So why do I think it's lost its mojo? Let's start with the way it treats its employees, writes Preston Gralla. Another example: Google employees, such as Sergey Solyanik, have started deserting the company. And its share price is down double that of the Dow or Nasdaq since November 2007. Even if Google has lost its mojo, why should you care? It won't make your searches any less effective, will it? Nope. But Google has its eyes on bigger things than search, notably your IT department. It's looking to displace Microsoft with hosted services like Google Apps, Gmail and Google Docs. Solyanik warns that Google's engineers care more about the 'coolness' of a service than about the service's effectiveness." Of course Google employees version of being mistreated is often laughable, and quite a shock when they look for their massage therapist at wherever they end up next.

Adam Korbitz writes "Astrobiology Magazine reports on new research indicating extremophile microbes may be able to live on Titan, the sixth and largest moon of Saturn — in spite of the fact that the moon is largely ice and covered with lakes of liquid methane. Titan joins Mars, Venus, Europa and Enceladus as a potential home to extremophile life in our solar system."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "You may recall that MediaSentry, the RIAA's unlicensed investigator, has been the subject of an investigation by Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth for its conduct of investigations without an investigator's license, an investigation in which it has made contradictory and false statements to the government's investigators. Well apparently this didn't deter MediaSentry from simply continuing its practice of conducting 'investigations' without a license. In Michigan, no less. We have learned from court papers (PDF) filed in Michigan that the practice continued for months after the DLEG had begun questioning the practice."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "You may recall that MediaSentry, the RIAA's unlicensed investigator, has been the subject of an investigation by Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth for its conduct of investigations without an investigator's license, an investigation in which it has made contradictory and false statements to the government's investigators. Well apparently this didn't deter MediaSentry from simply continuing its practice of conducting 'investigations' without a license. In Michigan, no less. We have learned from court papers (PDF) filed in Michigan that the practice continued for months after the DLEG had begun questioning the practice."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "You may recall that MediaSentry, the RIAA's unlicensed investigator, has been the subject of an investigation by Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth for its conduct of investigations without an investigator's license, an investigation in which it has made contradictory and false statements to the government's investigators. Well apparently this didn't deter MediaSentry from simply continuing its practice of conducting 'investigations' without a license. In Michigan, no less. We have learned from court papers (PDF) filed in Michigan that the practice continued for months after the DLEG had begun questioning the practice."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The same RIAA executive who defended a $222,000 verdict over 24 song files at an academic conference back in March, Kenneth Doroshow, is leaving the RIAA and joining the Entertainment Software Association ('ESA'). As I said on my blog, if Mr. Doroshow 'accomplishes for game manufacturers what he accomplished for the recording industry, I would say the industry's prospects are bleak.'"

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The same RIAA executive who defended a $222,000 verdict over 24 song files at an academic conference back in March, Kenneth Doroshow, is leaving the RIAA and joining the Entertainment Software Association ('ESA'). As I said on my blog, if Mr. Doroshow 'accomplishes for game manufacturers what he accomplished for the recording industry, I would say the industry's prospects are bleak.'"

SkeptOlympics writes "A new chapter in the ongoing controversy surrounding China's women's gymnastics team opened today, as search engine hacker stryde.hax found surviving copies of official registration documents issued by China's General Administration of Sport of China. The incriminating documents, expunged by censors from the official site and from Google's document cache, still appear in the document translation cache of Chinese search giant Baidu, here (1) and here (2), showing the age of one of China's gold medal winning gymnasts to be 14 instead of 16, the minimum age for competition presented on her government-issued passport. Now that official government documentation is available, how long will the IOC be able to keep a lid on this scandal?" I imagine the answer is "Forever."

Cycon writes "Google has announced, 'We're releasing a beta SDK. You can read about the new Android 0.9 SDK beta at the Android Developers' Site, or if you want to get straight to the bits, you can visit the download page.' A new Development Roadmap has also been released to help developers understand the direction the software is taking (as this is still only a Beta release). In addition, the FCC has approved the HTC Dream, and it is believed Google and T-Mobile will launch the phone in the US on November 10, since a confidentiality request attached to the application asks the FCC to keep details secret until that date."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Elektra v. Barker, one of the leading cases repudiating the RIAA's 'making available' theory, has been settled. Unlike in most cases, the actual settlement agreement (PDF) is on file with the Court, and a matter of public record. Now Ms. Barker's attack on the constitutionality of the RIAA's damages theory, as well as her other defenses — including unclean hands based on MediaSentry's illegal behavior, the RIAA's inability to sue for statutory damages, and innocent infringement — will not be adjudicated, and it will fall on the shoulders of other defendants to carry the day on those issues. Ms. Barker, a young social worker who lives in the Bronx, once told p2pnet 'I love music. I grew up in a house where music was played all the time. We had milk crates filled with albums.... So to be sued for having music files on my computer is an insult. It's a slap in the face. This experience has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wanted to swear off music.'"

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Elektra v. Barker, one of the leading cases repudiating the RIAA's 'making available' theory, has been settled. Unlike in most cases, the actual settlement agreement (PDF) is on file with the Court, and a matter of public record. Now Ms. Barker's attack on the constitutionality of the RIAA's damages theory, as well as her other defenses — including unclean hands based on MediaSentry's illegal behavior, the RIAA's inability to sue for statutory damages, and innocent infringement — will not be adjudicated, and it will fall on the shoulders of other defendants to carry the day on those issues. Ms. Barker, a young social worker who lives in the Bronx, once told p2pnet 'I love music. I grew up in a house where music was played all the time. We had milk crates filled with albums.... So to be sued for having music files on my computer is an insult. It's a slap in the face. This experience has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wanted to swear off music.'"

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Elektra v. Barker, one of the leading cases repudiating the RIAA's 'making available' theory, has been settled. Unlike in most cases, the actual settlement agreement (PDF) is on file with the Court, and a matter of public record. Now Ms. Barker's attack on the constitutionality of the RIAA's damages theory, as well as her other defenses — including unclean hands based on MediaSentry's illegal behavior, the RIAA's inability to sue for statutory damages, and innocent infringement — will not be adjudicated, and it will fall on the shoulders of other defendants to carry the day on those issues. Ms. Barker, a young social worker who lives in the Bronx, once told p2pnet 'I love music. I grew up in a house where music was played all the time. We had milk crates filled with albums.... So to be sued for having music files on my computer is an insult. It's a slap in the face. This experience has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wanted to swear off music.'"

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Well, Phase I of the RIAA's misguided pursuit of an innocent, disabled Oregon woman, Atlantic v. Andersen, has finally drawn to a close, as the RIAA was forced to pay Ms. Andersen $107,951, representing the amount of her attorneys fee judgment plus interest. But as some have pointed out, reimbursement for legal fees doesn't compensate Ms. Andersen for the other damages she's sustained. And that's where Phase II comes in, Andersen v. Atlantic. There the shoe is on the other foot, and Tanya is one doing the hunting, as she pursues the record companies and their running dogs for malicious prosecution. Should be interesting."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Well, Phase I of the RIAA's misguided pursuit of an innocent, disabled Oregon woman, Atlantic v. Andersen, has finally drawn to a close, as the RIAA was forced to pay Ms. Andersen $107,951, representing the amount of her attorneys fee judgment plus interest. But as some have pointed out, reimbursement for legal fees doesn't compensate Ms. Andersen for the other damages she's sustained. And that's where Phase II comes in, Andersen v. Atlantic. There the shoe is on the other foot, and Tanya is one doing the hunting, as she pursues the record companies and their running dogs for malicious prosecution. Should be interesting."