Slashdot Mirror

NaDrew writes "SFGate.com is running an AP article about Pac Bell's Internet arm suing music industry over file-sharer IDs. 'The suit also called to question some sections of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the federal law the RIAA contends supports its latest legal actions. A spokesman for SBC said the RIAA's use of the DMCA in its legal quest for online song-sharers butts up against the privacy rights of SBC's customers. "The action taken by SBC Internet Services is intended to protect the privacy of our customers," said SBC spokesman Larry Meyer.'" So SBC, like Verizon, is concerned about the cost/hassle of complying with all the subpoenas it has been receiving.

NaDrew writes "SFGate.com is running an AP article about Pac Bell's Internet arm suing music industry over file-sharer IDs. 'The suit also called to question some sections of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the federal law the RIAA contends supports its latest legal actions. A spokesman for SBC said the RIAA's use of the DMCA in its legal quest for online song-sharers butts up against the privacy rights of SBC's customers. "The action taken by SBC Internet Services is intended to protect the privacy of our customers," said SBC spokesman Larry Meyer.'" So SBC, like Verizon, is concerned about the cost/hassle of complying with all the subpoenas it has been receiving.

Silas writes "This SF Chronicle article (and many others) reports that destruction of the upper part of Earth's ozone layer has slowed because of the international effort more than a decade ago to ban ozone-damaging aerosols. More about the study and techniques used is here. We're still a long way away from recovery, but it's a nice example of humans taking an active role in reversing some of the damage we've done."

The San Francisco Chronicle has a piece discussing current efforts to clean up nuclear waste sites with microbes. Current treatment procedures generally involve pumping out the contaminated groundwater, filtering it, and pumping it back, which is rather expensive.

The World Health Organization has declared that SARS is contained, for now. Toronto has engaged in extensive analysis of the outbreak there, leading to a number of interesting and in-depth stories about the progression of the disease.

pabl0 writes "According to an article from SFGate.com (San Francisco Chronicle), a challenge has been posted, inviting web-site defacers to alter the content of as many web sites as possible on July 6th, with an apparent limit of 6,000 websites per contestant. Looks like this would be a good time to make sure all those web-server security patches are applied!"

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing out the Slate article called Iraq: The Computer Game, and subtitled "What 'virtual world' games can teach the real world about reconstructing Iraq." Written in a similar vein to an MSNBC article we covered a few weeks back, it looks in a bit more detail at how simulations "may offer useful lessons for rebuilding broken nations in the real world", mentioning the recent news that virtual world company There Inc. has been commissioned to create anti-terrorist training simulations, as well as Richard 'Lord British' Garriott's suggestion that "..games do clarify the essential rules for stabilizing a chaotic society."

Slashback with a followup on the perpetual motion DeLorean, a word on RIAA bank-account-jacking, a reminder about the fast-tracked vote on software patents in the EU, the real meaning of "high speed USB" and more. Read on below for the details.

Now even less than a week ... mpawlo writes "As reported by Greplaw, although I am still looking for further confirmation, it seems like the EU vote on software patentability has been moved from the late fall to June 30, 2003. Yes, that is in one (1) week. If you have more information and another source - please comment on this news item."

Mikael writes: "Personally, I find it somewhat disturbing from a democracy perspective that this proposal seems to be fast-tracked in the middle of the summer, when most Europeans want to focus on whether they should have strawberry or vanilla ice cream. In Sweden, we also got our Swedish version of the DMCA this week. I guess the ice cream will have to wait."

DoSthAboutIt points out that "A 'Petition for a Free Europe without Software Patents' has gained more than 150000 signatures. Among the supporters are more than 2000 company owners and chief executives and 25000 developpers and engineers from all sectors of the European information and telecommunication industries, as well as more than 2000 scientists and 180 lawyers. Companies like Siemens, IBM, Alcatel and Nokia lead the list of those whose researchers and developpers want to protect programming freedom and copyright property against what they see as a 'patent landgrab.' The whole article can be found here, including some statistics like signatories by country"

The story of Peng. mantispraying writes "Looks like the college student who settled with the the RIAA for $12,000, his entire life savings, has recouped all of his money thanks to a very generous file sharing community. Also, the search engine he created that got him in trouble is back online, for demonstration purposes only, of course."

Reader T points out that while one of the students who lost his life savings to RIAA has made it back through PayPal donations, "the other, Dan Peng, is still short about $12,000. Brother, can you spare a dime?"

I'd prefer the garrote and the stick, but hey. Mark Ferguson writes: "I attended the FTC spam forum. It seems I was on their call list :-) I parlayed that into getting several others on the panels as well. While there I spoke with bulk emailers and other industry folks. Some people defined Confirmed OPT-IN to mean you sending a confirmation that the email address was subscribed so they were doing double, confirmed OPT-IN.

My heads spins.

What I figured from what I learned was these folks truly refused to accept real definitions the Service Providers have been using for years so I decided to do a site for just this. ... Anyway, reboot, aka Andrew Cockrell myself and another built The Carrot and the Stick to explain email, define the best practices and to get people to abide by them.

Thoughts, comments and/or suggestions?"

Sooner or later, that DeLorean's going to land someone in jail. hackwrench writes "According to channel WSMV news, Alternate Energy Inventor Carl Tilley's compound was raided. Tilley was previously mentioned on Slashdot here."

Tilley had announced the then-upcoming demonstration of his perpetual-motion DeLorean.

My nanodots can fit inside your nanodots! Rocky Rawstern writes "I recently had the distinct pleasure to interview one of my favorite authors, Wil McCarthy. Upon completing three of his latest books - two sci-fi and one work of non-fiction - I realized that others would probably enjoy his ponderings as much as I. The questions for this interview stem from my own interest in programmable matter, and the awe-inspiring possibilities raised by Wil in his book Hacking Matter."

How to succeed (not necessarily) in business. jameshowison writes "A few months ago Ask Slashdot published Kevin Crowston's question on what makes open source software successful ... well the results are in and the paper typed. We ran the responses through a funky content analyser (called Grad Students). The metrics that academics and the industry have used for years simply don't work for OSS.

More and more it seems that we'll need to survey the number of job offers developers get and the size of the community to get at this one ..."

You sound very familiar to me. Interested Observer writes "Thanks to a slashdot article discussing false positives using Soundex I thought if Soundex can be used for something as important as "no-fly" lists then certainly we should be able to get some entertainment value out of it! See if your Soundex last name-counterparts show up in a Google News search."

A member of the USB-IF Administration writes to dispel the confusion raised by the seeming conflict between many USB products' labels and their actual data-transfer speeds:

"The source of confusion derives from the fact that USB specification revision numbers and data-transfer rates are often being used in place of the logo on consumer packaging, a purpose for which they were not originally intended. The USB-IF's recommended nomenclature for consumers is 'USB' for slower speed products (1.5 Mb/s and 12Mb/s) and "Hi-Speed USB" for high-speed products (480Mb/s), as signified in the USB logos that were introduced in late 2000. In short, consumers wishing to be certain they are getting the performance they paid for in their USB products can use the logo for clarification.

The USB-IF's naming and packaging recommendations for low- or full-speed USB products, as listed at the website http://www.usb.org/developers/packaging, state that such products can carry only the basic version of the USB logo, which simply states "Certified USB." We state clearly that manufacturers should avoid using terminology such as USB 2.0 Full Speed, Full Speed USB or USB 2.0. These formal recommendations were published to the USB-IF membership and posted on the website in August 2002.

The USB-IF is a nonprofit industry organization. We do not and cannot control how manufacturers label their products. We do work continuously with system and peripheral manufacturers, striving to provide consistency in the use of this nomenclature and the logos. The logo indicates that a product's performance against and conformance with the standard have been tested, and that the product has passed the USB compliance program.

Anyone having questions about the performance of a product should contact the manufacturer for clarification.

For a brief Q & A on this topic, please visit our website at http://www.usb.org/info/usb_nomenclature."

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing out a SFGate.com article about the official launch of MMO title Second Life, a "rapidly growing and constantly changing 3D online society, shaped entirely by its residents", which has its public unveiling today. We covered this interesting user-shaped virtual world a few weeks back, and it's now open for business, with a free Windows client download and monthly subscription fees. It's also one of the few MMO titles to have a DMCA complaints page for infringing user-created content, where complainants must fill out a form "identify[ing] in detail the location of the copyrighted work that you believe has been infringed upon. For example 'The copyrighted work I am referring to is located on the map area labeled 'Freelon, 104,30,56'.'"

John3 writes "The Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights has posted partial Social Security numbers for several California politicians to protest their vote against pending privacy legislation. According to a San Francisco Chronicle story, the SSNs were purchased on the Internet for $26." Now there's an effective way of showing the problems of the status quo.

John3 writes "The Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights has posted partial Social Security numbers for several California politicians to protest their vote against pending privacy legislation. According to a San Francisco Chronicle story, the SSNs were purchased on the Internet for $26." Now there's an effective way of showing the problems of the status quo.

securitas writes "Handspring unveiled its final product before being acquired by Palm: the Treo 600. It runs Palm OS 5.2 on a Texas Instruments ARM processor with 32MB of RAM, has a 160 x 160 color display, comes in GSM and CDMA versions, includes a digital camera plus various camera applications and supports Good Technology's Goodlink e-mail software, competition to RIM's BlackBerry. Of course it also comes with a keyboard, SMS capability, MP3 player, Web browser and Secure Digital/MMC memory-card expansion slot. Measuring 4.41 inches x 2.26 inches x 0.87 (LxWxD) and weighing about 6 ounces, analysts say that the Treo 600 is what clinched Palm's takeover of Handspring. The only problem that they forsee is a seriously crowded market for PDA/mobile phone combinations. Availability for the Treo 600 is this fall. Images at eWeek, SFGate or Reuters. Streaming movies from Handspring (QuickTime dial-up 56k| QuickTime dsl/cable 300k)." Reader Michael Ducker points out this longer article at TreoCentral as well.

securitas writes "Handspring unveiled its final product before being acquired by Palm: the Treo 600. It runs Palm OS 5.2 on a Texas Instruments ARM processor with 32MB of RAM, has a 160 x 160 color display, comes in GSM and CDMA versions, includes a digital camera plus various camera applications and supports Good Technology's Goodlink e-mail software, competition to RIM's BlackBerry. Of course it also comes with a keyboard, SMS capability, MP3 player, Web browser and Secure Digital/MMC memory-card expansion slot. Measuring 4.41 inches x 2.26 inches x 0.87 (LxWxD) and weighing about 6 ounces, analysts say that the Treo 600 is what clinched Palm's takeover of Handspring. The only problem that they forsee is a seriously crowded market for PDA/mobile phone combinations. Availability for the Treo 600 is this fall. Images at eWeek, SFGate or Reuters. Streaming movies from Handspring (QuickTime dial-up 56k| QuickTime dsl/cable 300k)." Reader Michael Ducker points out this longer article at TreoCentral as well.

cryptec writes "Today shortwave radio will have some new life pumped into it as the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle will be the first full time shortwave broadcaster of DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale). DRM is a full stereo fully digital broadcast system. The quality of the broadcasts are close to that of FM radio. For samples check out this link." Akai adds this link to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle with some more information, like the involvement of the BBC and Voice of America in this undertaking.

Makarand writes "According to SFGate.com, a company called IdleAire Technologies are building high-tech truck stops to provide drivers with air-conditioning, television, Internet access and phone service in truck cabs, so that they can turn off their engines. Trucks will pull into bays, where flexible tubes ending in vents for hot or cold air, and touch sensitive screens for Internet access can be pulled inside the truck's cab. There's also a separate wireless Internet option, where drivers don't have to pull into the bays. The basic services provided cost less than the fuel spent in idling a truck."

An anonymous reader writes "SF Gate has an article about people who patent ideas for things they have no intentions of building, hoping to license technology or block competitors from doing something similar. As if the patent system weren't screwed up enough already."

waytoomuchcoffee writes "According to a new study, our virtually identical DNA indicates humans were close to extinction about 70,000 years ago. Another take on the same study tells how being lactose intolerant in adulthood was normal, and being able to digest lactose became a survival advantage after dairy farming was invented."

lindner writes "According to a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle, the United States No-Fly List uses a soundex algorithm to match names. Designed 'to quickly summon passenger names or to catch deal-hunting passengers making duplicate bookings.' The system has only managed to rack up a slew of false-positives, including everyone matching soundex ("J. Adams") at one point in time. The problem has gotten so bad that there is now a "Fly List" for chronically misidentified passengers."

GregGardner writes "Archos is about to release the AV300 series, the next generation of portable video/image/MP3 player based off of the Archos Jukebox Multimedia discussed on Slashdot previously. Features include a 3.8" LCD screen for viewing movies and photos, FM tuner, MP3 playing and recording, 20GB or 40GB HD models, USB2.0 (optional Firewire) connection, TV-out, MPEG-4 encoding from a video/audio-in signal, digital photo (3.3 megapixel) and video camera, and much more. Looks like some of the features require add-on modules. I found a brief review on SF Gate which states that the 20GB model (AV320) will retail for $570."

bhoman writes "A wrist computer that tracks and calculates safe diving times and limits for SCUBA divers had a dangerous software bug that may have been covered up by company executives. This SF Chronicle Article details the problem, product, company, and some of the lawsuits. According to the Chron article, company execs tried to cover up and deny the problem for years, but their official website makes it look like they did a voluntary recall."

Makarand writes "Robotic digitization systems are the new help available to complete voluminous scanning tasks. Robots that can turn the pages of books and newspaper volumes and attain scanning speeds of more than 1000 pages/hour are now available. They even use puffs of compressed air to separate sticky pages!"

The SF Chronicle has a piece on power tool drag races. Best quote: "There are very few happy, bouncy, fuzzy robots."

linuxwrangler writes "Scott S. Sheppard, a graduate student at the University of Hawaii, has discovered 43 more moons orbiting Jupiter more than doubling the number of known Jovian moons. The small moons, which follow wildly irregular orbits, are thought to be the result of ancient collisions of larger moons. Sheppard used a 2.2 and a 3.6 meter telescope at the Mauna Kea observatory to catalog the moons."

minesweeper writes "It appears that the 'iLoo,' a portable toilet with Internet access designed by Microsoft, was actually just a hoax issued by its MSN division in the United Kingdom. In addition to receiving press here on Slashdot, the fake release was also covered by The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press, and Reuters. See a diagram of the iLoo here."

linuxwrangler writes "U.S. District Judge Thomas W. Thrash Jr. awarded Earthlink $16 million and an injunction against Howard Carmack for Carmack's use of Earthlink to deliver spam. Given that Earthlink is still awaiting payment of the $25 million it won against Kahn C. Smith last year, it views the injunction as the bigger of the two wins." A few more of these, and maybe the tide of spam will eb. Maybe. Nah.

georgelazenby writes "The Frisco Chronicle reports: While the music industry has been clumsily bullying its way through the federal government, the movie industry has taken a more subtle -- and more effective -- approach. The MPAA has been lobbying individual state legislatures to pass laws reaching far beyond the original DMCA. The proposed laws would permit cable TV companies to 'limit subscribers to using only certain brands of VCRs and could ban TiVo in favor of their own proprietary PVR technologies.' According to one expert, the bills are 'tremendously open-ended and create theoretical and potential criminal liabilities for just about anybody on the planet.'"

linuxwrangler writes "Researchers at Holloman AFB have broken their own two decades old land speed record for rail vehicles. The rocket powered sled covered the 3 mile track in roughly 6 seconds. Preliminary numbers put the sled's speed at mach 8.6 or about 6,400 mph - it covered the last 1.8 miles in just 1.3 seconds. The previous record of 6,122 mph was set on Oct. 5, 1982. Other accounts are at the Alamogordo Daily News, the Denver Post, and CNN."

SuperBanana writes "According to a story in the Boston Globe, Intel feels a MA artist co-op gallery's name is "too similar to Intel's advertising slogan." The gallery name: "The Art Inside Gallery". Intel has said it will pay for the costs of the name change, and the artists are debating the hassle and expense of getting a lawyer, but 16 artists don't stand much of a chance against one of the world's largest legal departments. This is not the first time Intel has threatened legal action over trademarks. Maybe the EFF's Chilling Effects Clearinghouse can help. Is anyone else getting tired of the bully called 'corporate America'?"

minesweeper writes "In another sign of the times, this article in the SF Chronicle says that the seventh annual Webby Awards, typically a flamboyant affair held in San Francisco, has been reduced to a virtual event this year. Many of the nominees couldn't make it to the event scheduled for June 5 due to the downturn in the economy and fears of traveling."

sgpennebaker writes "This article tells of lab rats who've built a cell phone/PDA/GPS device that also lets you surf the web and, oh, yeah, sniff out any dirty bombs that might have gone off in your area. Then you can cancel your meetings, call family and friends and send GPS coordinates to whoever it is that cleans up afterwards. I'm waiting for the next generation; I want one that also tracks hungry, angry bears and emits a loud noise when it senses their proximity."

spamania writes "The San Francisco Chronicle is running this article about a new book by Britain's astronomer royal, Sir Martin Rees, that advocates restricting scientific research in certain fields in the interest of public safety. In "Our Final Hour", Rees lends a sober, respectable voice to the oft-irrational ranting about nanotech, biotech, and other fields."

spamania writes "The San Francisco Chronicle is running this article about a new book by Britain's astronomer royal, Sir Martin Rees, that advocates restricting scientific research in certain fields in the interest of public safety. In "Our Final Hour", Rees lends a sober, respectable voice to the oft-irrational ranting about nanotech, biotech, and other fields."

955301 writes "As if it was unexpected, the New York Times (free reg...) has an article on attempts by our Congressional Republicans to eliminate the expiration of the Patriot Act. Everyone may thank Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah for getting this 9/11 snowball rolling, and the general population for our current leadership." There's another story in the SF Chronicle.

JackMonkey writes "As SFGate.com reports, scientists have successfully cloned an endangered species. "The clone -- a cattlelike creature known as a Javan banteng, native to Asian jungles -- was grown from a single skin cell taken from a captive banteng before it died in 1980." Maybe Jurassic Park isn't too far away after all." See our previous cloning story also.

bewert writes "A sign of things to come? Is this kind of thing happening without anyone catching it? This short article notes that war photog Brian Walski was fired for combining elements from two photos to make one with 'better composition'. Here is the 'Editor's Note' detailing the transgression. It's not really highlighted on their front page ;) I wonder how often this type of Photoshopping is done without anyone noticing it? To paraphrase Pink Floyd, "Mother, should I trust the government?"..." Another submitter points out an article examining digitally altered magazine covers. Slashdot has done several stories on unnoticeable digital alterations; here's 1, 2, 3 old stories to peruse.

An anonymous reader writes "Clothing manufacturer Benetton has announced that they will begin embedding RFID tags in clothing for inventory control purposes. You can read more about this at SF Gate." morcheeba adds more information: "EETimes is reporting that Benetton will be embedding a Philips RFID chip into the label of every new garment bearing the name of Benetton's core clothing brand, Sisley. The 15 million chips expected sold in 2003 will allow monitoring of garments from production to shipping, shelves and dressing rooms. The I.CODE chip (tech info) used in Benetton's labels will include 1,024 bits of EEPROM and operate at a distance of up to 1.5 meters. RFIDs look like they would be extremely uncomfortable in some Sisley clothes."

An anonymous reader writes "Clothing manufacturer Benetton has announced that they will begin embedding RFID tags in clothing for inventory control purposes. You can read more about this at SF Gate." morcheeba adds more information: "EETimes is reporting that Benetton will be embedding a Philips RFID chip into the label of every new garment bearing the name of Benetton's core clothing brand, Sisley. The 15 million chips expected sold in 2003 will allow monitoring of garments from production to shipping, shelves and dressing rooms. The I.CODE chip (tech info) used in Benetton's labels will include 1,024 bits of EEPROM and operate at a distance of up to 1.5 meters. RFIDs look like they would be extremely uncomfortable in some Sisley clothes."

linuxwrangler writes "AOL announced today that its spam filters hit the 1 billion reject mark for a 24 hour period. This is an average of 28 rejects per day per member. In addition, AOL spam engineers say they receive 5.5 million spam submissions each day from AOL users. Other reports here(1) and here(2)."

DaytonCIM writes "SFGate.com has a great story on the real life of game testers. 'Life is not all fun and games, though. It's all games -- with little time left for sleeping or eating, at least during the busy months before Christmas. The longest week he has logged was 106 hours, and 60-hour-plus weeks are typical in deadline crunches, he said.'"

waytoomuchcoffee writes "The San Francisco Chronicle is running a story on geoForecaster.com, a site that offers 'earthquake forecasts,' for a fee. California is looking into claims that the site is practicing geology without a license."

(ok.whatever) writes "A former suicide prevention counselor is employed full-time by a data recovery firm to console its callers. The San Francisco Chronicle reports: 'When the company receives a call from someone who's clearly lost it -- which can happen several times an hour -- Chessin comes on the line to help the caller rediscover their happy place.' Good grief!"

Skyshadow writes "Vermont Bookseller Bear Pond Books has announced that they will purge their sales records at the request of customers . This would effectively sidestep typically insideous a provision of the PATRIOT Act which allows government agencies to secretly seize sales records. The store's co-owner, Michael Katzenberg, put it this way: 'When the CIA comes and asks what you've read because they're suspicious of you, we can't tell them because we don't have it... That's just a basic right, to be able to read what you want without fear that somebody is looking over your shoulder to see what you're reading.' Now if only certain other booksellers would show that same conscience, we might have something here."

Saturday in the San Francisco Chronicle a story about a prank that the Clampers (E Clampus Vitus, man!) pulled on UC Berkeley was featured. In short the Clampers faked a brass plaque that intimated that Sir Francis Drake landed in Marin 462 years ago. The Clampers are an organization known for, well, drinking and horsing around, but this kind of prank, one that spans 70 years (or more than 400, depending on your point of view) is epic and inspiring.

Saturday in the San Francisco Chronicle a story about a prank that the Clampers (E Clampus Vitus, man!) pulled on UC Berkeley was featured. In short the Clampers faked a brass plaque that intimated that Sir Francis Drake landed in Marin 462 years ago. The Clampers are an organization known for, well, drinking and horsing around, but this kind of prank, one that spans 70 years (or more than 400, depending on your point of view) is epic and inspiring.

GuyMannDude writes "Lucasfilm has broken ground on the new $300 million special effects campus that he hopes will help San Francisco rival Hollywood as a producer of movie magic. Some see the project as a way for the Presidio (a national park) to become economically self-sufficient while critics claim that level of commercialization is unnecessary."

dcg writes "San Francisco Chronicle is reporting on how web taxes could help the states, especially California, with its budget woes. One particularly disconcerting comment is from California's Controller Steve Westly. 'In addition to sales taxes, Westly said he is considering a tax on Internet access like those that appear on telephone bills. He also is looking at a tax on software downloads.' Would this affect only purchased software, or could sourceforge.net become a source of revenue for the state..."

dcg writes "San Francisco Chronicle is reporting on how web taxes could help the states, especially California, with its budget woes. One particularly disconcerting comment is from California's Controller Steve Westly. 'In addition to sales taxes, Westly said he is considering a tax on Internet access like those that appear on telephone bills. He also is looking at a tax on software downloads.' Would this affect only purchased software, or could sourceforge.net become a source of revenue for the state..."

Shadowcat writes "George Lucas is consolidating his galaxy, merging LucasArts, Lucas Digital (ILM & Skywalker Sound), Lucas Licensing, and Lucasfilm into one mega-corporation to provide a single place to create all sorts of media. You can find the article on SF Chronicle Site."

Shadowcat writes "George Lucas is consolidating his galaxy, merging LucasArts, Lucas Digital (ILM & Skywalker Sound), Lucas Licensing, and Lucasfilm into one mega-corporation to provide a single place to create all sorts of media. You can find the article on SF Chronicle Site."

LandSonar writes "Graham Hawkes, the guru of the submarine design business, tried out his new submersible sea plane yesterday in SF Bay. Called the 'Deep Flight Aviator'. Article and cool pictures. This craft doesn't use ballast like traditional subs. Flys more like a plane. 'It looks like something NASA might build or the Blue Angels might fly.'"