Slashdot Mirror

Today brings several articles on the MPAA's attempt to create a "broadcast flag" to kill home recording of broadcast television. Lunenburg writes "Apparently too impatient to implement the Broadcast Flag in digital media through legislative means, both Sen. Hollings and Rep. Tauzin have both sent letters to FCC Chairman Michael Powell urging him to mandate the implementation of the Broadcast Flag under FCC rules, according to the EFF's Consensus at Lawyerpoint blog." There's a CNet story about a presentation given by the MPAA to pro-business lobbying groups, and a MSNBC story about digital video recorders.

swight1701 writes: "MSNBC has an article about how E-bay and others are enacting contingency plans in case WorldCom goes under and no one steps in to run UUNet right away. Also talks extensively about how this is happening already in Europe with KPNQwest, who is telling their customers, 'During this week you can already expect outages to happen that we cannot solve any more. At the end of this week we expect that larger parts of the network will be down.' Can telecommunications giants realistically keep up with the public's need for ever-growing bandwidth without going bankrupt?"

StefanJ writes "'Are you pondering what I'm pondering Pinky?' An item on MSNBC reports that researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston have produced mice with big, convoluted brains by inserting an single extra gene. I am reminded of two pieces of SF: Olaf Stapledon's novel Sirius, about a lab experiment that produces a brainy dog, and Bruce Sterling "Our Neural Chernobyl," in which the country is overrun with cunning coyotes and tribes of raccoons."

An anonymous submitter writes "MSNBC is carrying a report on Volvo's new "Safety Car." It sounds pretty cool, too, until you get to the part that mentions it runs Windows 98 as its operating system. Yikes! Be sure to reboot your car frequently to avoid crashes."

An anonymous submitter writes "MSNBC is carrying a report on Volvo's new "Safety Car." It sounds pretty cool, too, until you get to the part that mentions it runs Windows 98 as its operating system. Yikes! Be sure to reboot your car frequently to avoid crashes."

ByteHog writes "The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Monday to create a new punishment of life imprisonment for malicious computer hackers. The article on MSNBC also mentions that police can conduct internet or telephone eavesdropping without first obtaining a court order. Says a Rep from Texas: 'A mouse can be just as dangerous as a bullet or a bomb.'" Other articles can be found here and the text of the bill is available.

dejaffa writes "It seems that an Indian Linux-based "computer for the poor" is having financial issues. This has implications for the world digital divide. The story is here (MSNBC, I know, I know). There were originally great hopes for it, as seen here, but money is proving to be the stumbling block."

EyesWideOpen writes "The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is issuing 'takedown' notices to ISP's to alert them that customers are using their internet service to transmit or post copyrighted movies. The ISP's in turn send a letter to the customers threatening to disable their internet connection unless the offending material is removed. The MPAA is using software that 'cruises file-swapping networks like Gnutella to find copyrighted materials, hunts down the IP address of the poster, then discovers which Internet service provider is being used.'"

SoCalChris writes "According to this article on MSNBC.com, researchers at CalTech have discovered a new alloy that is stronger than steel and titanium, can be cast in a mold like plastic, and sharpened like glass. The first plans for the new alloy are to be used in golf clubs, baseball bats, skis, and cell phone covers."

SoCalChris writes "According to this article on MSNBC.com, researchers at CalTech have discovered a new alloy that is stronger than steel and titanium, can be cast in a mold like plastic, and sharpened like glass. The first plans for the new alloy are to be used in golf clubs, baseball bats, skis, and cell phone covers."

An anonymous reader writes "MSNBC reports that apparently the music industry feels so satisfied with going after file swapping software makers that they want to sue the pants off the file swappers themselves. Of course, you'll need to be a big fish with lots of illegal music to get their attention." This is what they should have done in the first place- go after the people who are actually doing it instead of making P2P seemingly illegal.

Aaron Rowe writes "MSNBC and The Lancet medical journal have reported that the new oxazolidinone antibiotic Zyvox is ineffective against some forms of Staphylococcus aureus."

Aaron Rowe writes "MSNBC and The Lancet medical journal have reported that the new oxazolidinone antibiotic Zyvox is ineffective against some forms of Staphylococcus aureus."

lrose writes "Check out this story over at ZDNet -- Microsoft is developing a secure operating system to be combined with hardware doing public key cryptography. The DRM aspect reminds me of something I read about an imaginary day in the not-too-distant future, where you can no longer install Linux on your own box because you don't have the necessary rights." Coursey's column is quite interesting, bringing a lot more of the backstory behind Palladium into public view. While geeks have been following and worrying about the TCPA, Microsoft has been working to spin the story with assorted columnists and journalists, so that when it broke it would be in the context that Steven Levy bought into hook, line and sinker: a scheme to protect you rather than one to prevent you from using your computer in unapproved ways.

Veramocor writes "MSNBC.com has an article posted from the WSJ about MS's new plan for living room domination, codenamed Freon. Freon will be capable of 'playing games but also offering television capabilities, such as pausing live TV and recording shows onto a computer hard drive.' The article then goes on to explain future potential business plans for XBox incarnations. The system does seem to have some great advantages. I must question their naming question however, we all know what a disaster the actual chemical Freon was. Here's to hoping, Cheers!" We mentioned the Xbox's planned evolution the other day, too, but without the fancy codename.

Back in Brown writes: "This article from today's Wall St. Journal (via MSNBC) presents the viewpoints of several legal commentators that the Internet should be treated like any other invention and not subject to novel legal interpretations. 'The steam engine ... probably transformed American law, but the "law of the steam engine" never existed.' Another quote: 'cyberbuffs are afflicted with "insufficient perspective, disdain for history, unnecessary futurology and technophilia."'"

SuperJames_74 writes: "Over here they've got a one-page article about some quirky little oceanic scientific mysteries. Those peanut-sized Australian jellyfish sound pretty scary, if you ask me!"

angkor cut-and-pastes "'The image acknowledged as the world's first photograph - taken by a French inventor in 1826 - has passed its first full-scale analysis with flying colors and is now awaiting an airtight case that will keep it safe for centuries to come, scientists said Wednesday.'" See also the first color photography.

apeir0 writes "The Register has a story which proposes an ulterior motive to Microsoft's new Palladium: a GPL-killer. 'It's the very fact that this appears insoluble to me that helps me realize that MS has put tremendous, careful thought into it. To make the commons Linux-hostile, MS is taking dramatic steps to make it GPL-hostile. Very clever and admirably diabolical.' Is this a valid point or just paranoia?" Ross Anderson has been writing about this recently; we covered his paper a few days ago, and he's now got a Palladium FAQ up. Another submitter sent in this interview with the Microsoft manager in charge of Palladium. The Washington Post has a column. Update: 06/27 22:43 GMT by T : Bob Cringely also has a column on Palladium up, in which he says that several of his fears have been realized by it.

TunkeyMicket writes "It appears MSNBC is reporting that Linux has failed as an operating system. By citing the large Linux hype as reason for Linux to be dominating the market, they draw the conclusion that the "open source" alternative has flopped as an operating system. They briefly mention the success of Linux in the server community, but really the article gives Linux as little credit as possible."

Rytsarsky writes "This story (Reuters) at MSNBC explains why NASA has grounded the fleet. They have been grounded 'indefinitely after finding small cracks in propellant lines on the main engines of two shuttles.' This will 'delay the scheduled July 19 launch of shuttle Columbia.' Good thing this was caught before something catastrophic happened."

Paradox Jack writes: "according to this article at MSNBC, Microsoft has an ambitious new plan called Palladium to rework computer and internet security. This includes changes in hardware, digital rights management (on all sides), and far more. Now, who thinks this will actually work and is for our own good?"

jobugeek writes "A New York appeals court has opened up the abililty for consumers to sue the Baby Bells for antitrust violations. The question now is, will anyone try to."

ChenLing writes "Forget small robots on wheels playing soccer...193 teams from 30 countries have built androids to play soccer at 'RoboCup'. Although as the article says, it will be a while before we can pit androids vs humans on the same field....." Our previous story has background links and information about the contest.

scubacuda writes "Space.com has an article on a group of amateur rocketeers (the Civilian Space Xploration Team) hoping to send the first amateur rocket, Primera Spaceshot 2002, into space by the end of June from the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. If all goes well with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the team will send a rocket stands about 17 feet tall (5.18 meters) and weighs 550 pounds (249 kilograms) 62 nautical miles (114 kilometers) in the atmosphere (12 miles higher than the 50-mile altitude largely regarded as the boundary of space). (MSN version here)"

bgood writes: "MSNBC has an article about a California firm's plans for building a firefighting airship. Wetzone Engineering is working on a prototype and hopes to have a production craft in use within three years." Looks like a great way to water the lawn, too.

Rivard was one of several to point out that MSNBC says software sucks. My opinion is that in software fields where the monetary gap between market-leader and second-place is large, we should expect bad software. Good design, good execution, good debugging all take time, but users can't see under the hood -- and wherever information is scarce or not readily traded among consumers, the free market bogs down. (Note what the article says about McAfee VirusScan.) So companies that don't plan on releasing a crummy 1.0 and fixing it later go under. That's just the way some markets work; if you're a coder or engineer who doesn't like that, find yourself a job in a niche without that monetary gap. Anyway, the really stunning thing is that, of all the media outlets, MSNBC points out that just one of Microsoft's poor design decisions has cost consumers $8.75 billion, and wonders why nobody has sued. Update: 06/18 14:10 GMT by J : Readers point out the story is a reprint from Technology Review (one of the few good magazines I get -- but this issue hasn't arrived yet :).

Rivard continued his writeup with an interesting point of view, saying that while we all know software sucks, we just accept it:

"Even though 'plenty of reviewers, pundits, hackers and other outsiders' will point out problems, often intentionally left in the product, no one has brought a liability suit against the makers of the known-to-be-vitiated product -- because the software gestapo (the End User License Agreement) has been 'able to avoid product liability litigation partly because software licenses force customers into arbitration' of poorly designed pith.

"There is a light at the end of the tunnel, believe it or not, and it's Bill Gates. Microsoft suspended coding for two months to seminar on bugs and how to fix them. Gates told his employees he wanted to make 'reliable and secure' software Microsoft's 'highest priority.' If you don't buy Gates' ad-hocking promises of redemption there are other solutions, like creating a programming language that forces good code; going back to the days of intense peer-review, instead of relying on compilers; and intense planning, past the bungling paradigm of the bar napkin."

311Stylee writes: "Wow. I've never even heard of this before, but it looks genuine with a writeup on MSNBC and Space.com . Existing technology is used to measure sea temperatures through clouds via satellite, but newer cameras could be used in a huge array of applications because of their ability to see through walls, clothing, smoke and clouds. Google gets 546 hits on T-rays, inlcuding one from AT+T Bell Labs."

MaxwellStreet writes "There's a great editorial on msnbc.com about the ethical dilemma of whether or not a system administrator (or the business they work for) is obligated to disclose credit card number theft from their machines. What does everyone here think?"

Mister B writes: "In an end-run around the South African government's plans to seize control of the .za domain, administrator Mike Lawrie took pre-emptive action and moved the primary .za zone file offshore. Revealing their naivete, parliamentary committee chairman Nkenke Kekana accused him of destabilising the net! Then again, the opposition think he's a hero. :-) More details on MSNBC."

An anonymous reader submits: "An AP article looks at the science of roller coaster testing. In general, a coaster must pass a "Fred" test, Fred being something analgous to a crash test dummy used in the automobile industry. Fred has a bunch of sensors in him that record data during the ride's operation and provide it all to engineers ensuring a ride's safety. Also discussed is pending regulation over G-Forces in New Joisey."

Pinhead writes "From MSNBC, it appears a new study suggests that a massive extinction that occurred 250 million years ago may not have been an asteroid but a large lava flow that spewed large amounts of poisonous gases in the air. This extinction led to the rise of the dinosaurs." Note that there are two different big extinctions: this first one occurred when plant life was mostly ferns, and all the continents were together in Pangaea. The later one is the one that everyone knows about, that wiped out the dinosaurs.

Thrazzle Throne writes "The folks in rural Ruby Ranch got tired of lame dial-up server. They fought the phone company for use of their un-used lines and installed their own Dsl service. Very cool read."

BS405397 writes "Here is the just released MIT whitepaper on the security holes in the MS X-Box, and for those who are interested, opens up the X-Box pretty nicely." Update: 06/04 17:13 GMT by M : The server appears to be down at the moment. There is a copy of the paper mirrored here. Reuters and other news outlets have now picked up the story, two days after Slashdot.

nakhla writes "MSNBC.com is running a story on how an Italian soccer team is using artificial intelligence to predict sports injuries. The team is working with Computer Associates to develop neural network technology that can be combined with daily tests of the athletes to determine patterns which occur right before a player gets injured. Of course, one has to assume that it wouldn't be able to predict a player getting kicked in the head in the middle of the game, resulting in a concussion." I was wondering how to tie a World Cup story into Slashdot. Congratulations to Senegal.

nakhla writes "MSNBC.com is running a story on how an Italian soccer team is using artificial intelligence to predict sports injuries. The team is working with Computer Associates to develop neural network technology that can be combined with daily tests of the athletes to determine patterns which occur right before a player gets injured. Of course, one has to assume that it wouldn't be able to predict a player getting kicked in the head in the middle of the game, resulting in a concussion." I was wondering how to tie a World Cup story into Slashdot. Congratulations to Senegal.

McSpew writes "This article at MSNBC is the most in-depth coverage I've seen from a mainstream news source about the $1 Billion Canal Plus lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch-owned NDS. For those not familiar with the suit, French direct-broadcast satellite (DBS) company Canal Plus alleges that NDS, a company owned by News Corp (which also owns BSkyB--Canal Plus's biggest competitor in Europe) hacked the smart cards used by Canal Plus and published the hacks on the Internet. Included in the article are conspiracy theories, a suspicious death and a look at the shady characters working for both sides." We had a previous story about this.

McSpew writes "This article at MSNBC is the most in-depth coverage I've seen from a mainstream news source about the $1 Billion Canal Plus lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch-owned NDS. For those not familiar with the suit, French direct-broadcast satellite (DBS) company Canal Plus alleges that NDS, a company owned by News Corp (which also owns BSkyB--Canal Plus's biggest competitor in Europe) hacked the smart cards used by Canal Plus and published the hacks on the Internet. Included in the article are conspiracy theories, a suspicious death and a look at the shady characters working for both sides." We had a previous story about this.

Mister B writes: "A scam artist who trapped surfers mistyping their URLs (including those for children's websites) and barraged them with popup ads for pr0n and gambling has been busted to the tune of about $2 million. Apparently the FTC got ticked after having to close 64 separate browser windows! The FTC has a sense of humour nevertheless: the case name is 'Cupcake Party' (the scammer did business under 'Cupcake') :-) . More details at MSNBC and the FTC."

orn writes "Rep. Lampson introduced a bill (pdf) (H.R. 4742) to the House on May 16th for a human space exploration initiative. I haven't heard a peep about it from the popular press, just a few articles on various space sites: SpaceRef's, the Planetary Society's, the Mars Society's. If you're interested in the sort of thing (and you live in the U.S.), contact your representative and let them know! While you're at it, figure out how to get the popular press aware of this..." On a related note is a story dicussing the controversy over whether the Moon should be developed, which seems a little premature to me.

jonerik writes "The Associated Press (by way of MSNBC) reports the debut flight on Wednesday of Boeing's X-45A, the first unmanned aircraft designed from the start to carry weapons. According to the article, the X-45 - one of two being tested - flew for 14 minutes and will be able to carry 3,000 pounds of guided bombs. If eventually purchased by the Pentagon, expect to see it in service sometime between 2007 and 2010. The plane's relatively cheap cost ($10-15 million per aircraft), ease of maintenance, and lack of an onboard pilot will likely make it a staple of future U.S. war plans."

jonerik writes "The Associated Press (by way of MSNBC) reports the debut flight on Wednesday of Boeing's X-45A, the first unmanned aircraft designed from the start to carry weapons. According to the article, the X-45 - one of two being tested - flew for 14 minutes and will be able to carry 3,000 pounds of guided bombs. If eventually purchased by the Pentagon, expect to see it in service sometime between 2007 and 2010. The plane's relatively cheap cost ($10-15 million per aircraft), ease of maintenance, and lack of an onboard pilot will likely make it a staple of future U.S. war plans."

Everyone and their brother wrote in about the featherless chicken. Besides the humor value, interesting in that we're creating another species with qualities that suit humans but unsuitable for life on its own.

jonerik writes "NBC News is reporting that today New Jersey will begin examining the possibility of placing limits on roller coaster G-forces. Pointing out that the G-forces on coasters are considerably greater than even those experienced by astronauts and race car drivers, legislators on both the state and national levels want to start reining in coaster G-forces which have been blamed for a number of injuries and deaths over the past few years. Pansies. Why do they think people ride roller coasters to begin with?"

Dustin Destree writes: "This article on MSNBC talks about how IBM has developed a new transistor based on nanotube technology that at its first stages outperforms even the fastest silicon transistor. Interesting read that gives ideas about where the computer industry is heading in the next few years."

fReNeTiK writes "In this amusingly controversial article over at the weekly standard's web site, we get to hear an opinion not often heard among the hordes of Star Wars fanatics out there: The rebel alliance are actually "... an unimpressive crew of anarchic royals who wreck the galaxy so that Princess Leia can have her tiara back." An entertaining read which will surely spark flame wars of epic proportions." Reader kaypro submits an MSNBC story examining the science of Star Wars. And Ant notes that the Clones DVD will be out earlier than expected.

Anonymous Coward writes "Buckminster Fuller's Geodesic Dome is falling apart and one man hopes to save it. Read more at http://www.msnbc.com/news/748889.asp?0bl=-0" The Buckminster Fuller Institute has a page on the dome, which has contact info for donations.

Planetes writes "There is a story on MSNBC about some surprise archaeology. Apparently, cannonballs from shipwrecks are "exploding" (more like heating up and cracking open) when they are exposed to air. At least one reacted so violently it reached several hundred degrees. Talk about a booby trap. I'd never have seen this one coming." Heat from oxidation (that's "rusting", if you haven't taken chemistry) has started many fires in cargo ships carrying iron.

mcwop writes "A Wall Street Journal story carried on MSNBC chronicles MusicNet's failure as a service before it even gets started. The story contains some funny quotes such as: 'The first offering was too clunky and too consumer unfriendly to hold much hope for its success, says Richard Parsons, AOL Time Warner's incoming chief executive. So we are going to go back, and we will come out with a 2.0 product which will be more consumer friendly, easy to use. ... This is a business of trial and error.' Any consumer could have informed the music titans that their business plan was flawed. Unfortunately, version 2.0 won't be any better unless the music industry is willing to take some risks. One of the more interesting aspects to the story is how the major music companies could hardly be present in the same room for fear that antitrust laws may be broken." A good business-oriented review of Musicnet's operations. With the artists making a quarter-cent per downloaded song, they're probably just as happy to see it fail.

jpbostic writes "According to this article on MSNBC, ag folks in Hawaii were considering using powdered caffeine to help rid themselves of an infestation of frogs from Puerto Rico. The EPA's application regulations apparently proved too burdensome and the stuff sits in a warehouse. If the EPA is really concerned with the danger, they should investigate the coffee in some restaurants *quoth the caffeine addict*. :-)"