Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader wrote to mention CNNMoney's coverage of the latest round of MPAA lawsuits targeting end users. From the article: "The civil suits against unnamed "John Doe" defendants seek up to $150,000 per downloaded digital file and come as the film industry prepares for its annual Oscar telecast in Hollywood where awards for top films and stars are given out."

Haxx writes "More than two years after losing the space shuttle Columbia and its seven crew, NASA said Friday it has set May 15 as its target date for once again launching shuttles into space." Reader gollum123 writes points out Reuters's version of the story, which says that "May 15 was chosen as the launch date for Discovery and its seven-member crew because of lighting conditions and thermal issues related to the shuttle's launch and docking at the International Space Station."

DesiVideoGamer writes "CNN has a story about Blockbuster's violation of New Jersey's consumer fraud act in which they made false claims in their "No More Late Fees" campaign. New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey filed a lawsuit today in hopes that Blockbuster would stop misleading their customers into thinking they could keep their movie rentals as long as they want without penalty."

dstates writes "A unique California law forced ChoicePoint to reveal that a break-in had compromised accounts revealing personal information on 40,000 southern californians and leading to more than 750 cases of identity theft. The company initially denied that the break-in compromised consumers outside of California, but CNN is now reporting that 110,000 accounts nationally have been compromised. 'The irony appears to be that ChoicePoint has not done its own due diligence in verifying the identities of those 'businesses' that apply to be customers,' said Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. 'They're not doing the very thing they claim their service enables their customers to achieve.'"

IAmTheDave writes "Reuters has the story that the New York Times Co. is set to purchase About.com for $410M from Primedia, Inc. The high purchase price is due to increased ad revenue, up 30% from last year." From the article: "Phillips pointed out that Internet companies have started trading again at significantly higher multiples, and said The Times Co. would be able to use ad revenue from About.com to make up for the flagging classified ad sales that have plagued the industry." Commentary also available at The Chicago Tribune, The Guardian, and CNN Money.

Ant writes "CNN reports that a weak El Nino and human-made greenhouse gases could make 2005 the warmest year since records started being kept in the late 1800s." From the article: "While climate events like El Nino -- when warm water spreads over much of the tropical Pacific Ocean --affect global temperatures, the increasing role of human-made pollutants plays a big part."

AT writes "The Brittan School District in Sutter County, California, is requiring students to carry RFID-tagged identity badges on them at all times. Readers are currently installed at the doors to all classrooms. Readers were removed from bathrooms when parents protested. The school district is meeting next week to consider parents objections to the system." Relatedly (but not), Leilah writes "The University of California is considering using RFID tags or bar codes to help track their collection of bodies and parts. They are attempting to reopen their body donation program which has been on hold since spring 2004 due to disappearing parts - they've previously had legal trouble over improper disposal as well."

mrseigen writes "CNN is reporting that EA has opened a game program at USC. It is the first official game development education. Yeah, right."

Ludonauts.com has a short piece where several intelligent observers in the field of game writing give their picks for the best game writing of 2004. The authors offer links to several quality works, including the now infamous EA Spouse blog, and the always quality Game Over column at CNN. They also refer to the trend towards the New Games Journalism, covered previously on Slashdot.

MikeyMars writes "CNN is reporting that the FCC has put out a list of domain names that could potentially be fined $11,000 dollars if they continue to send unsolicited text messages to cell phone users."

Artifex writes "Astronomers using infrared imaging capabilities at Keck Observatory in Hawaii have discovered that Saturn's "south" pole is warm - the first warm pole detected in the solar system. "

Stephan writes "Google lost a trademark-infringement case in France. News.com is reporting that a Paris District Court ruled yesterday against Google in a lawsuit filed by high-end fashion designer Louis Vuitton. The company is suing Google for allowing its competitors to buy targeted ads on the search engine's search results pages that use or are associated with the Vuitton trademark. The court charged Google with trademark counterfeiting, unfair competition and misleading advertising. Google was ordered to pay $257,430 (200,000 euros). Google is facing similar lawsuits in different countries. In the United States, the company recently won a favorable ruling in a similar case brought by GEICO, the car insurance company."

KoReE writes "According to this CNN article, a study at the University of Maryland says the loss of productivity from spam is costing U.S. companies $22 billion per year." Of course, they also say people get 18.5 spam per day, and I'm tipping in at 20x that.

travis slack writes "President Bush used his State of the Union speech to press home key domestic and international agendas. At home he promised to reform Social Security for future generations. Looking overseas, Bush vowed to spread freedoms around the world while continuing the war on terror, and he pointed to Iraq as a symbol of change."

moojin writes "CNN.com reports that "in a paper published in Tuesday's Journal of Applied Physics, HP said three members of its Quantum Science Research group propose and demonstrate a "crossbar latch," which provides the signal restoration and inversion required for general computing without the need for transistors.""

l4m3z0r writes "This rather alarming article discusses a study of high-school students in which they were asked about censorship, protected speech, and other aspects of the first amendment. The results are extremely worrisome: "Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories." and this "Three in four students said flag burning is illegal. It's not. About half the students said the government can restrict any indecent material on the Internet. It can't.".."

Unfallversicherung writes "'If you're light, it's fairly easy to travel at your own speed -- that is to say 186,282 miles per second or 299,800 kilometers per second. But if you are matter, then it's another matter altogether.' Astronomers are now measuring matter that moves at 99.9 percent of light-speed. Jupiter-sized blobs of hot gas embedded in streams of material ejected from hyperactive galaxies known as blazars."

Rinisari writes "'The world's four biggest consumer electronics companies have agreed to start using a common method to protect digital music and video against piracy and illegal copying, they said on Thursday,' begins a Reuters article on Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, and Sony's new alliance to establish interoperability and combat the evergrowing 'threat' to the music industry. The new alliance is to be called the 'Marlin Joint Development Association.'" The BBC's story on this issue is better, with quotes from several people.

gurps_npc writes "An article at CNN discusses the how Phishers have moved beyond the typical email scam. Last month, Secunia (Danish security firm) documented a case where a phisher somehow modified a windows host file so that when you type in the correct url in the address, it redirects you to the phisher site. Worms and spyware are being built for the purpose of phishing, and it is also believed that phishers are attempting to compromise domain name servers. If one of these go down millions could lose their security instantly, even if they themselves have maintened the security of their computers."

WillDraven writes "CNN, NASA and the ESA are reporting that the Huygens space probe has entered the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan after traveling 2.2 billion miles. Pictures from the moon's surface should be available sometime this afternoon" according to the NASA TV schedule. What we know so far is that Huygens landed successfully and sent at least the carrier signal from the surface to Cassini for 90+ minutes, more than expected, and that Cassini has successfully repointed at the Earth and begun relaying the data it received, beginning with test packets. Huygens now sits on Titan, silent forever, while we wait to see whether or how much valuable data Cassini obtained and can send back. Update: 01/14 17:20 GMT by M : So far: they report zero lost packets in the transmission, but one of the two independent data-collection systems is apparently giving some problems. Update: 01/14 21:40 GMT by J : The news is pretty much all good: a very successful mission. Expect to see many photos within hours, but for now apparently only three have been released. Ice blocks or rolling stones -- let the debates begin!

An anonymous reader writes "Several news outlets are reporting that the United States has officially ended the The Iraq Survey Group's search for WMDs. Prior to the war, WMDs were named as a justification for a 'preemptive' invasion."

F_SMASH writes "The United States' Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has charged a group of companies and individuals with failing to include required warnings on 'sex' related spam e-mail."

lgrinberg writes "Even in the face of terrible disasters such as the Tsunami that hit South East Asia and Africa in late December, many are finding ways to take advantage of it and make money off of it. An example is fake websites that claim to be non-profit charitable organizations that help out the victims when they really take all the money for themselves. Other instances are emails or websites written by people who claim to be survivors of the disaster and are asking for help. The FBI warns that many of these are fake and recommends people to help via known non-profit organizations."

Gebraucht von Neuwagen writes "This finding adds extremely salty water to the extreme environments where extremophiles can live. The Discovery Basin contains a brine that has the highest concentration of magnesium chloride found thus far in a marine environment; such concentrations are considered anathema to life. The researcher was quoted saying: "This in turn adds to arguments that life could exist outside the Earth""

Spy Handler writes "According to an article on CNN, the Business Software Alliance went before the Congress yesterday and lobbied for stronger copyright protection. Their key point: Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should be required to reveal the names of customers who may be distributing illegal wares on peer-to-peer networks. I guess they feel that the DMCA is too lax for them to be allowed to carry out RIAA-style raids on college students."

HarvardAce writes "CNN has just released a list of 24 of the top 25 innovations of the past 25 years. Most of them are things we use every day in life, such as cell phones (#2), PCs (#3), and e-mail (#5). CNN won't release the #1 innovation until Sunday, January 18 at 8pm EST (Monday, Jan 19 @ 1AM GMT), so I wanted to see if Slashdot users could come up with what they think the #1 innovation is and comment on the rest of the list."

An anonymous reader writes "CNN/Money has posted a new Game Over column quoting an industry analyst who suggests the next generation Xbox could cost as much as $400. This is on top of software price increases of as much as $10 per game, which (according to the article) have already been confirmed. Also discussed are backwards compatibility and the lingering question of whether the Next Xbox will have a hard drive."

dolphin558 writes "The little rover that could, did. The Spirit Rover marks its one year aniversary after an expected lifetime of just 3 months. It has traversed more than 2 miles of Martian landscape and sent back thousands of pictures and reams of data. There is no indication that it will die anytime soon as it climbs the Columbia Hills."

Chessphoon writes "NASA's Deep Impact, a spacecraft named after the 1998 movie, is scheduled to launch on January 12. If all goes as planned, the spacecraft will collide with Comet Tempel 1 six months later on July 4, and create a crater so that the inside of the comet can be analyzed."

nomrniceguy writes "The Coast Guard plans to use dozens of buoys off the U.S. coast to extend the reach of a security system that monitors large vessels heading in and out of ports. The buoys are intended to extend the network's reach -- the Guard now receives the automated data only when a vessel is within about 25 miles of a port. The floating transmitters will relay the information from hundreds of miles off shore, from the middle of Lake Superior and off coastlines from Alaska to Maine."

An anonymous reader noted that CNN is running a story crowning vioxx the new king of spam, upsetting poor old fashioned pornography. Of course, for me all my spam seems to be about rolexes.

CryptoJoe writes "Space.com and CNN report a successful docking between the Russian-built cargo ship Progress 16 and the International Space Station (ISS). NASA had indicated that a failure of Progress 16 would lead to the evacuation of the ISS because food supplies are critically low."

theodp writes "When his small plane banked uncontrollably and began spiraling toward earth, Canadian rancher Albert Kolk and his three passengers were saved by a single parachute. Big-as-a-house parachutes made by Ballistic Recovery Systems are stored behind the rear seats in small planes and fired with a rocket through the rear windshield; they're attached with high-strength lines to the plane's wings, nose and tail. Deployment videos here."

im333mfg writes "Tonight at 7:08pm PST, the Cassini spacecraft will be releasing the much anticipated Huygens Probe for a rendezvous with the Saturn moon Titan. It will be making a 22 day journey to the moon, and end up entering the atmosphere sometime on January 14th. 'Titan is one of the remaining puzzles of the solar system - while Cassini's imaging cameras and radar instrument have begun to reveal the details of its surface, the Huygens probe will be the first spacecraft to venture beneath Titan's thick clouds.'"

tigerdarklord writes "The Sci-Fi concept of pet cloning has become a commercial venture. Genetic Savings & Clone now not only offers genebanking for your pet (alive or recently dead), but a full service cloning shop. Although they started by producing two clones of the CEO's cat, they have now produced their first commercial clone for a woman from Texas. GSC has modified their cloning procedure to overcome the resemblance issues demonstrated when the College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M, created CopyCat. The technology looks promising but the $50,000 price tag will prove to place the service out of the reach of most pet owners."

An anonymous reader writes "CNN/Money's Game Over column looks at some of the gaming trends of 2004, including the prevalence of sex and sequels. Writer Chris Morris provides some follow-up as well, discussing the sad, sad sales numbers of "Singles," "The Guy Game" and "Leisure Suit Larry"; the odds of another Playboy magazine video game girls layout and whatever happened to the ApeXtreme." Gamespot has a nice Year in Review piece as well, and we've already previously mentioned Grimwell.com's MMORPG Year in Review.

An anonymous reader writes "CNN/Money's Game Over column looks at some of the gaming trends of 2004, including the prevalence of sex and sequels. Writer Chris Morris provides some follow-up as well, discussing the sad, sad sales numbers of "Singles," "The Guy Game" and "Leisure Suit Larry"; the odds of another Playboy magazine video game girls layout and whatever happened to the ApeXtreme." Gamespot has a nice Year in Review piece as well, and we've already previously mentioned Grimwell.com's MMORPG Year in Review.

nick-bts writes "CNN, the BBC and Space.com are reporting the first successful launch of the new Boeing Delta-4 Heavy, capable of lifting 23 tonnes into a low-Earth orbit (similar to the space shuttle). Personally I think the Ariane 5 and 'Satan' are way sexier..."

smnicoll writes "The European Court of First Instance has thrown out Microsoft's appeal to have penalties for the abuse of monopoly suspended, reports BBC News Online. 'Microsoft's application for interim measures is therefore dismissed in its entirety,' The court's statement said. 'The evidence adduced by Microsoft is not sufficient to show that implementation of the remedies imposed by the Commission might cause serious and irreparable damage.' The commission's case is mainly focused on Microsoft's integration of Windows Media Player into the operationg system and the effects that has on the ability of Real Networks and Apple to get their rival players used." Similar stories at Bloomberg, CNET, and Reuters (via CNN).

A reader writes "Looks like if you die, Yahoo won't grant access to family members. I know I've enjoyed reading my grandfather's letters from WWII, this could be a huge loss of history if other ISP's have the same policy." MJK points out that Slashdot has explored the notion of what happens to your data after you die.

rscrawford writes "CNN reports that Microsoft may charge extra for security software. So first they edge their competition out of the browser market, then they tie IE into the OS so tightly that a crash in IE can crash the computer, and then they make IE so vulnerable that just using it is hazardous to the typical computer's health, and now they want to CHARGE users to fix it?"

An anonymous reader writes "Gemini, Apollo and Space Shuttle astronaut John Young, due to retire in two weeks, says that the human species is in danger of becoming extinct: 'The statistical risk of humans getting wiped out in the next 100 years due to a super volcano or asteroid or comet impact is 1 in 455. How does that relate? You're 10 times more likely to get wiped out by a civilization-ending event in the next 100 years than you are getting killed in a commercial airline crash.' He says that the technologies needed to colonize the solar system will help people survive through disasters on Earth. Young has written about this topic before in an essay called 'The Big Picture'." In related news, the Shuttle overhaul program is on track for a May 2005 launch.

sailforsingapore writes "Apparently, President Bush is drawing up plans to disable sections of the GPS network in the event of a terrorist attack. The rationale seems to be that it would prevent said terrorists from using the GPS system to direct some sort of attack. The plan would shut down access not only to the GPS satellite network, but projects like the EU's Galileo. Ironically, this comes alongside the President's plan to strengthen the GPS network against deliberate jamming."

Jack.Gavigan writes "Trading Technologies, who own patents which they claim cover various electronic trading systems, have published an open letter to the futures industry, asking that the top futures and options exchanges (Eurex, LIFFE, CME and CBoT) pay 2.5c for each trade transacted on their electronic platforms. This is going to be interesting - we're not talking about a couple of online bookstores here. Billions are traded every day in the global futures markets." Update: 12/15 19:18 GMT by T : As reader Bryan Sloane points out, the original headline incorrectly said "Options" rather than "Futures," as it should have and now does.

leighklotz writes "PARC, which a few years ago was said be be targeted for a spin-off from Xerox, has signed on its first major partner under its new life as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Xerox. Fujitsu has announced "Joint Research in Ubiquitous Computing," a three-year sponsored-research plan beginning in January 2005. 'Because we're not a product company, we need a partner like Fujitsu who can deliver our products into the marketplace,' said Teresa Lunt, according to InfoWorld."

Johan writes "HP has started selling a Yuan 3,999 ($483) PC in China. The cool part is that it runs FreeDOS! Not sure why FreeDOS was chosen, but I suspect they expect it to be replaced with Linux or Windows by the user. By not having to pay for Windows, they are able to include better hardware. They probably didn't want the support burden of bundling the PC with a Linux distribution." And while we're on China, Cringely has some prognostication and speculation about IBM's sale of their PC division to a Chinese company.

gollum123 writes "CNN and others are reporting that food is running so low aboard the international space station that both the crew members have been asked to cut their calories, at least until a Russian supply ship arrives in a little over two weeks. The situation is so bad that if a Russian cargo vessel scheduled to arrive on Dec. 25 has a mishap or is significantly delayed, the astronauts, one American and one Russian, will have to abandon the station and return home months ahead of schedule. An independent team is looking into how the food inventory ended up being tracked so poorly and how it can be improved in the future."

An anonymous reader writes "CNN/Money's Game Over column offers suggestions for what to buy the obnoxiously rich gamer on your shopping list this year. Among the items mentioned are a $300,000 motion simulator and a 5.5 yard long monitor." Re: The Monitor - Gaaaaaaaaaah...

hthb writes "Google admits on CNN Money that fraudulent clicks are becoming a very large problem for them. 'A top Google official said that growing abuse of the company's lucrative sponsored ad-search model jeopardizes the popular Internet search engine's business. "I think something has to be done about this really, really quickly, because I think, potentially, it threatens our business model," Google Chief Financial Officer George Reyes said Wednesday.'" We had an earlier story about attempted extortion.

mgv writes "It's been promised for years, but it's just become a reality. Stem cells taken from cord blood have enabled a paralysed woman in South Korea to walk again for the first time in 20 years. The details are on the Sydney Morning Herald Site which requires registration, but can also be seen on the World Peace Herald. Too late for Christopher Reeve, but not for the thousands of new injuries worldwide each year or the millions of paralysed people from other diseases in the world."