Slashdot Mirror

tetrahedrassface writes "An Iowanian is living on nothing but beer for the 46 days of Lent. J.Wilson, a blogger, and editor of the weekly Adams County Free Press modeled this Lent exercise on 17'th century German Monks who practiced liquid fasts. Using a custom made grog that has high caloric values is key as Wilson says because ordinary light beer just doesn't have enough nutritional value. He has already lost 11 pounds while following his weekday four a day and weekend 5 a day beer scheme."

theshowmecanuck writes "The Prime Minister of Canada and the Minister of Industry are set to reverse a ruling by the CRTC (Canadian Radio and Television Commission) allowing big Cable and Telecom companies to charge based on bandwidth usage. The ruling applied to both retail customers and smaller ISPs buying bandwidth wholesale from the major companies. The head of the CRTC has been called to testify before cabinet on why they want to allow the big internet providers to do this. In this case the elected government agrees with the very large number of angry Canadians that this was bad for competition. Most Canadians see this as a bureaucracy aided cash grab with very suspect timing since companies like Netflix are starting to move into the Canadian market (big cable companies lowered caps and increased usage fees a week before Netflix started Canadian operations). The CRTC has a fair number of ex-industry executives on the board."

adonoman writes "A 25-year-old Winnipeg businessman is the first Pirate Party of Canada candidate to run for federal election. At the same time, the US and UK pirate parties have put out an open letter to Anonymous requesting that they cease Operation Payback's DDOS attacks and focus on taking a legal route to fix intellectual property law."

An anonymous reader writes "'Officer Bubbles' — the Toronto Police Constable who was videotaped threatening a G20 protester with arrest for assault over the crime of blowing bubbles at a police officer has had enough of mocking videos and comments on YouTube. He has decided to sue everyone involved (commenters included) for more than a million dollars each. The complaint is detailed in his statement of claim — most of the comments seem fairly tame by internet standards; if this goes anywhere, everyone is going to have to watch what they say pretty carefully. The lawsuit appears to have been successful in intimidating the author of the mocking cartoons into taking them down."

1 a bee writes "CNN is reporting that China is attempting to block all communication regarding Peace prize winner Liu Xiaobo. Even texting is affected: 'Text-messaging on mobile phones is not immune from censors, either. A Shanghai-based netizen, @littley, tweeted his unfortunate experience: "My SIM card just got de-activated, turning my iPhone to an iPod touch after I texted my dad about Liu Xiaobo winning the Nobel Peace Prize."' Might as well add Slashdot to the censored list." Further coverage is available from NBC.

spasm writes "A University of Toronto engineering graduate student has made and successfully flown a human-powered flapping-wing aircraft. From the article: 'Todd Reichert, a PhD candidate at the university's Institute of Aerospace Studies, piloted the wing-flapping aircraft, sustaining both altitude and airspeed for 19.3 seconds and covering a distance of 145 metres at an average speed of 25.6 kilometres per hour.'"

anonymous writes "Does lightning predict the intensity of a tropical storm? What role does dust from the Sahara play? Do hurricanes form from the large-scale environment around a tropical storm or from small-scale formations 100 kilometers from the center? A team from NASA, NOAA, and NSF plan to find out. Starting Saturday, the team will conduct the largest hurricane study every undertaken. Among other things, a better understanding of hurricanes has ramifications for weather prediction, building codes, insurance policies, and disaster planning." One recent study found that hurricane creation is affected by plankton in the ocean.

drbutts writes "The Toronto Star has an interesting story on how they are securing DNS: 'It's housed in two high-security facilities separated by the North American landmass. The one authenticated map of the Internet. Were it to be lost — either through a catastrophic physical or cyber attack — it could be recreated by seven individuals spread around the globe. One of them is Ottawa's Norm Ritchie. Ritchie was recently chosen to hold one of seven smartcards that can rebuild the root key that underpins this system' called DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions). In essence, these seven can rebuild the architecture that allows users to know for certain where they are and where they are going when navigating the Web."

Meshach writes "Hot on the heels of Netflix coming to Canada, Rogers (one of the biggest ISPs in Canada) has shrunk download limits. 'As of Wednesday, new customers who sign up for the Lite service will be allowed 15 gigabytes, a drop from the 25 GB limit offered to those who signed up before July 21. Meanwhile, any new Lite user who goes over the monthly limit will have to pay $4 per GB up to a maximum of $50 — a spike from the previous $2.5 per GB surcharge.' Officially, there is no connection between the two events, but it seems an odd coincidence, especially when Rogers charges customers who exceed their bandwidth allowance."

An anonymous reader writes "Negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement resume today in Lucerne, Switzerland, with the ninth round of talks. The Toronto Star highlights the mounting opposition to the deal from developing world countries such as India and China, while Michael Geist has posted a video of a recent lecture that provides background on the agreement and where things currently stand."

mandelbr0t writes "The Canadian Conservative government is preparing to reintroduce amended copyright legislation on Thursday (we discussed the rumor some weeks ago). Most sources say that the proposed legislation is very similar to Bill C-61, generally dubbed the 'Canadian DMCA.' It still includes definitions of 'technological protections' and criminalizes 'circumvention' of those protections. Bill C-61 died in the summer of 2008, facing massive opposition from the Canadian public. Once again, it's time for Canadians to get politically active; ORC ran a large campaign with the last attempt, and will likely be updated soon with the new proposed legislation." Read below for more of the submitter's thoughts on the coming battle.
As with Bill C-61, the Conservative government has launched a campaign of misinformation to attempt to force the law down our throat. Industry Minister Tony Clement is trying to convince people that "format shifting" is currently illegal. Of course, it is not actually criminal, and enforcement of private infringement, as always, is prevented by the fact that massive invasion of privacy would have to occur. Second, Mr. Clement is claiming that this law is necessary to bring Canada into line with the WIPO Treaty. The above readings discredit WIPO altogether. Furthermore, the two articles that are being referred to are Articles 11 and 12. Note the use of the phrase "effective technological measure" and the absence of any criminality requirement. This legislation is not necessary to provide amended copyright law that is consistent with the WIPO treaty, and will hopefully die an uneventful death, to be buried for eternity.

Hugh Pickens writes "The Toronto Star reports that a Utah woman is suing Google for more than $100,000 in damages, claiming its maps function gave her walking directions that led her onto a major highway, where she was struck by a car. Lauren Rosenberg sought directions between two addresses in Utah about 3 kilometers apart and the top result suggested that she follow a busy rural highway for several hundred meters. The highway did not have sidewalks or any other pedestrian-friendly amenities, and Rosenberg was struck by a car. Rosenberg filed suit against both the driver of the car that struck her and Google, claiming both carried responsibility in her injury. Her lawyers claim Google is liable because it did not warn her that the route would not offer a safe place for a pedestrian to walk. Google has pointed out that the directions Rosenberg sought come with a warning of caution for pedestrians, but Rosenberg claims that she accessed the Maps function on her Blackberry mobile device, where it did not include the warning."

Gabriella Nagy says the billing practices of Rogers Wireless Inc. allowed her husband to discover her extramarital affair, and she's not happy about it. She is now suing the company for $600,000, alleging invasion of privacy and breach of contract. "The husband used the previously private and confidential information that the defendant unilaterally disclosed to the husband to inquire about the people that the plaintiff was telephoning and the nature of such calls," the statement of claim says.

Lisa J. Murphy has written an erotic book with tactile images for that special visually impaired porn connoisseur in your life. Tactile Mind contains explicit softcore raised images, along with Braille text and photos. From the article: "A photographer with a certificate in Tactile Graphics from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, Murphy learned to create touchable images of animals for books for visually impaired children. Then she realized that there was a lack of such books for adults only. 'There are no books of tactile pictures of nudes for adults, at least the last time I looked around,' says Murphy. 'We're breaking new ground. Playboy has [an edition with] Braille wording, but there are no pictures.' She says that while we live in a culture saturated with sexual images, the blind have been 'left out.'"

Whether you want to join with your sweetheart in a perfect union of physical beauty, or just give the cute neighbor a "Brazilian Coffee Filter," Mildred's Temple Kitchen would like you to do it in their bathroom this Valentine's Day weekend. The restaurant's website asks: "Have you given any thought to moving beyond the bedroom? Check out Mildred's Sexy Bathrooms throughout the weekend of Big Love." You get the picture.' Chef and co-owner Donna Dooher says, "We've always had little trysts in our bathrooms. We're taking it to the next level on Valentine's weekend."

jvillain writes "The Canadian Recording Industry Association faces a lawsuit for 60 billion dollars over willful infringement. These numbers may sound outrageous, yet they are based on the same rules that led the recording industry to claim a single file sharer is liable for millions in damages. Since these exact same companies are currently in the middle of trying to force the Canadian government to bring in a DMCA for Canada, it will be interesting to see how they try to spin this."

jvillain writes "India is about to pull the plug on 25 million cell phones in the name of fighting terrorism and fraud. 'The ban by India's Department of Telecommunications has been unfolding gradually since Oct. 6, 2008, six weeks before the attacks in Mumbai killed 173 people and wounded 308. A memo then directed service providers to cut off cellphone users whose devices didn't have a real IMEI — or unique identity number — in the interests of 'national security.' Since then, the move has picked up steam as a way to circumvent terrorists using black market, unregistered cellphones. The Mumbai attackers kept in touch with each other via cellphones and used GPS to pinpoint their attacks, which started Nov. 26, 2008, and went on for three days. The telecommunications department has issued warnings and deadlines through 2009 but has announced this one is for real, telling operators to block cellphones without valid IMEI numbers. Previously, it warned companies to stop importing them and customers to stop buying them.'"

inject_hotmail.com writes "Internet and law genius Michael Geist writes about some shenanigans by the cell phone carriers and the Canadian government in his column in The Star. Canadian taxpayers funded a 'Cell Phone Cost Calculator' so that the average person could theoretically wade through the disjointed and incongruent package offerings. The calculator wound up being yanked a couple weeks before launch. Geist suggests that the major cell carriers lobbied the appropriate public officials to have the program nixed because it would bite into their profit if the general public could make sense out of pricing and fees. Geist continues, 'Sensing that [Tony] Clement (Industry Minister) was facing pressure to block the calculator, Canadian consumer groups wrote to the minister, urging him to stick with it.' Moving forward, Michael makes a novel suggestion, one that would show an immense level of understanding by the government: 'With public dollars having funded the mothballed project, the government should now consider releasing the calculator's source code and enable other groups to pick up where the OCA (Office of Consumer Affairs) left off.'"

Myriad and a number of other readers passed along the news that the Canadian Privacy Commissioner has made a determination that Facebook violates Canadian privacy law in four different respects. Canada has the highest per-capita facebook participation in the world — about a third of the population — according to coverage in The Star. The EU is also expressing similar privacy concerns, though Canada's action "represents the most exhaustive official investigation of Facebook privacy practices anywhere in the world," says Michael Geist. The CBC's coverage spells out the areas of privacy concern, in particular that nearly a million developers of Facebook apps in 180 countries have full access to the entirety of users' private data. Also of concern: Facebook holds on to your data indefinitely after you quit the site. The BBC notes that Facebook is working with the privacy commission to resolve the issues, and quotes a Facebook spokesman thus: "Overall, we are looking for practical solutions that operate at scale and respect the fact that people come to share and not to hide." (Schneier recently blogged about research on "privacy salience," and cited Facebook's practices among others' as practical examples of how social networking sites have learned not to push the privacy issue in users' faces.)

AndreV writes "It's endlessly comforting to know a recently designed and implemented long-distance robotic signing arm can produce signatures legal in both the US and Canada. The aptly named LongPen replicates the handwriting from a person writing in a remote location — with the unique speed, cadence and pressure of a human pen-stroke. It started as an idea from author Margaret Atwood to help free her from grueling, multi-city, multi-country book tours, but the hard stuff was done by a bunch of Canadian haptic gurus, whose design took into consideration many factors of the human arm and how we write. How it works: from the author-end, data protocols are set up, and the pen pressure is measured on a special tablet. The data streams to the robot, while algorithms smooth out all the missed points. Complex math operations were used to help the mechatronic limb repeat the hand's motions without unnecessary jerking, and programmers had to 'scale time' or 'stretch time' by breaking down the movements, essentially tricking the eyes into thinking the robot is writing fast. It was recently adopted by the Ontario Government to sign official documents. It helps criminals sign books, too."

daveofdoom writes "The French-Canadian government of Quebec is saying 'non' to English-only video games if French versions are available. 'It's causing a lot of consternation among retailers and gamers alike, who fear the rules will lead to delays in video games arriving in the province, and may not accomplish what the law intends, which is to promote and protect the French language.' This is a ridiculous rule, as game companies can simply stop creating French versions of games to bypass the restriction."

Defeat Globalism writes in with a Canadian court decision that has ordered a man suing over injuries from a car accident to answer questions about content on his private "friends only" Facebook page. "Lawyers for Janice Roman, the defendant in the lawsuit, believe information posted on John Leduc's private Facebook site — normally accessible only to his approved 'friends' — may be relevant to his claim an accident in Lindsay in 2004 lessened his enjoyment of life. As a result of the ruling by Justice David Brown of Ontario's Superior Court of Justice, Leduc must now submit to cross-examination by Roman's lawyers about what his Facebook page contains. Brown's Feb. 20 ruling also makes clear that lawyers must now explain to their clients 'in appropriate cases' that postings on Facebook or other networking sites — such as MySpace, LinkedIn and even blogs — may be relevant to allegations in a lawsuit, said Tariq Remtulla, a Toronto lawyer who has been following the issue."

A 16-year-old student went to a job interview instead of the hospital after he was stabbed. The Staff at the King West Vets veterinary clinic noticed blood on the students leg during the co-op placement interview and called police. "He did really well on the interview and we were very proud of him for sticking to the appointment," said veterinarian Kent Ackerman. He wouldn't say if the student will get the job. You know times are tough when showing up after being stabbed doesn't land you the job.

thepacketmaster writes "The Star reports about a new power generation model using smaller distributed power generators located closer to the consumer. This saves money on power generation lines and creates an infrastructure that can be more easily expanded with smaller incremental steps, compared to bigger centralized power generation projects. The generators in line for this are green sources, but Hyperion Power Generation, NuScale, Adams Atomic Engines (and some other companies) are offering small nuclear reactors to plug into this type of infrastructure. The generator from Hyperion is about the size of a garden shed, and uses older technology that is not capable of creating nuclear warheads, and supposedly self-regulating so it won't go critical. They envision burying reactors near the consumers for 5-10 years, digging them back up and recycling them. Since they are so low maintenance and self-contained, they are calling them nuclear batteries."

jage2 writes "Researchers say they have located the world's oldest stash of marijuana in a tomb in a remote part of China. The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly 'cultivated for psychoactive purposes,' rather than as fibre for clothing, or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany. The 789 grams of dried cannabis was buried alongside a light-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian man, likely a shaman of the Gushi culture, near Turpan in northwestern China."

thepacketmaster writes "A previous Slashdot article I posted mentioned the possibility of Stephen Hawking coming to Canada. The Toronto Star now reports that he has accepted the position. Hawking will hold the title of distinguished research chair at the prestigious Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics."

pparsons writes "Bell Canada Inc. will not have to suspend its practice of 'shaping' traffic on the Internet after a group of companies that resell access to Bell's network complained their customers were also being negatively affected. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission today released a decision that denied the Canadian Association of Internet Providers' request that Bell be ordered to cease its application of the practice to its wholesale customers."

An anonymous reader writes "The web is evil and must be stopped — because it makes public information too public. So says Canada's Privacy Commissioner. She wants to 'anonymize' court records by substituting initials for names. The Toronto Star quotes Jennifer Stodddart as saying 'The open court rule, which is extremely historically important, has now become distorted by the effect of massive search engines... Court decisions and other related documents, which contain all sorts of personal information, are now searchable worldwide, which was never intended when openness rules were devised.' All Stoddart's proposal would do is erect a minor barrier for the techno unsaavy. Researchers, reporters, geeks, and most teenagers would still be able to figure out who's who. Stoddart seems to believe only in an abstract notion of freedom and access — but only as long as not too many people use it and no one suffers. She cites the case of someone who is upset at reading the divorce case of her parents. Is Stoddart a danger or a menace? Or just clueless?"

thepacketmaster writes "The International Boundaries Research Unit has recently published a new jurisdictional map of the Arctic, using geographic and legal definitions. Now it appears Santa Claus could potentially be Danish. But as pointed out in an article at The Star, more important than St. Nick is 'an area thought to contain one-fifth of the world's undiscovered and recoverable oil and gas resources,' and from this map, Russia has a huge claim in that."

thepacketmaster learned of "...the possibility of Steven Hawking moving to Waterloo in Canada: 'A report out of Britain suggests Stephen Hawking is considering an invitation to come work at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics....But he's also being encouraged to move to Ontario by his University of Cambridge colleague Neil Turok, the mathematical physicist who will take over as Perimeter's executive director on Oct. 1. Perimeter confirmed last night that it has made a standing offer to Hawking...Turok is leaving Cambridge after failing to persuade university authorities, research councils and sponsors to spend $40 million...By comparison, Waterloo's Perimeter Institute has about $600 million in funding...The addition of Hawking to Perimeter's staff of top physicists would be a major coup for the research institute, founded in 1999 by Mike Lazaridis, founder and co-CEO of Research In Motion, which makes the BlackBerry.'"

Pickens brings news that a student at Ryerson University is facing 147 counts of academic misconduct after helping to run a chemistry study group through Facebook. School officials have declined to comment, but students are claiming that it is simply a valid studying technique in the information age. Quoting: "Avenir, 18, faces an expulsion hearing Tuesday before the engineering faculty appeals committee. If he loses that appeal, he can take his case to the university's senate. The incident has sent shock waves through student ranks, says Kim Neale, 26, the student union's advocacy co-ordinator, who will represent Avenir at the hearing. 'That's the worst part; it's creating this culture of fear, where if I post a question about physics homework on my friend's wall (a Facebook bulletin board) and ask if anyone has any ideas how to approach this - and my prof sees this, am I cheating?' said Neale, who has used Facebook study groups herself."

The Star reports on this inventor breaking all the laws of physics as far as free energy goes. It even provoked interest from "esteemed Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Markus Zahn". I would like to know how this seemingly backyard enthusiast's experimental set up has not been tried a million times over the years. It seems so simple and too good to be true. The article has links to a multi-part video demo of the device accelerating an electric motor under load for free!

martyros writes "Researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine are performing clinical trials of a vaccine that teaches the immune system to attack cocaine, preventing it from giving a high. The vaccine is made by attaching inactivated cocaine molecules to the outside of inactivated cholera proteins. When the immune system attacks the cholera proteins, it also 'learns' the cocaine molecules as well. The result is that the immune system 'recognizes the potent naked drug when it's ingested. The antibodies bind to the cocaine and prevent it from reaching the brain, where it normally would generate the highs that are so addictive.'" An earlier story from The Star notes that human trials for vaccines against both cocaine and nicotine are well under way.

Homeless clothing technology has taken a huge step forward by actually existing, thanks to Canadian designer Lida Baday. The coat is waterproof with pouches to hold more or less newspaper insulation depending on what the temperature is outside.

loserMcloser writes "Another Chinese man has died after spending three days in an internet cafe for an online gaming marathon session. He apparently fainted and died at the cafe from exhaustion. 'The report did not say what the man, whose name was not given, was playing. The report said that about 100 other Web surfers "left the cafe in fear after witnessing the man's death."'"

The Toronto Star reports researchers have used adult skin stem cells to heal spinal cord injuries in rats. "Injured rats injected with skin-derived stem cells regained mobility and had better walking co-ordination, according to the study published yesterday in the Journal of Neuroscience. The skin-derived stem cells, injected directly into the injured rats' spinal cords, were able to survive in their new location and set off a flurry of activity, helping to heal the cavity in the cord."

Raver32 writes "Yahoo Inc. Chairman Terry Semel ended his six-year tenure as chief executive officer today and will hand over the reins to co-founder Jerry Yang in the Internet icon's latest attempt to regain investor confidence. Semel, 64, will remain chairman in a non-executive role. Besides naming Yang as its new CEO, Yahoo appointed Susan Decker as its president. Decker, who had been recently promoted to oversee Yahoo's advertising operations, had widely been seen as Semel's heir apparent."

Raver32 writes to tell us that U.S. astronaut Sunita 'Suni' Williams has set a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman. Breaking the previous record of 188 days set by astronaut Shannon Lucid in '96, Williams has lived aboard the space station since last December. "'It's just that I'm in the right place at the right time,' Williams, 41, said when Mission Control in Houston congratulated her on the record. 'Even when the station has little problems, it's just a beautiful, wonderful place to live.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist's latest Toronto Star column features a behind-the-scenes look at how Canada got its movie piracy bill based on internal government documents obtained under the Access to Information Act. Few will be shocked to learn that Hollywood lobbyists provided draft legislation months earlier as part of their barrage of lobbying, though the documents show that advisers to the Minister were skeptical that the proposal would accomplish anything. From the article: 'The industry's lobby efforts were clearly successful. Ignoring the inconsistent claims, the absence of evidence that Canadian films are being affected, the contrary internal advice, and the bracing reality that Hollywood has acknowledged that the U.S. is by far the largest source of illegal camcording worldwide notwithstanding its movie piracy legislation, Bill C-59 is expected to sail through Parliament. In doing so, Ottawa is sending Canadians two messages. The first is what drew the industry standing ovation - unauthorized camcording will not be tolerated in Canada even if it means diverting law enforcement resources from health and safety issues to movie theatres. The second is that private meetings, foreign pressures and lobbyist drafted bills is how law gets made in Canada.'"

IceDiver writes "According to an article in the Toronto Star, an Ontario company has been given approval to build a 40MW solar power plant near Sarnia in Southwestern Ontario. This is enough power for about 10,000 homes. The plant will cover 365 hectares (1.4 sq. miles) and is to be operational by 2010. OptiSolar, the company building the plant, claims to have developed a way to mass produce the solar panels at a dramatically reduced cost, making the plant competitive with other forms of power generation. 'Compared to coal, nuclear power, even wind, solar's squeaky-clean image comes at a high price. OptiSolar is selling the electricity to the province under its new standard offer program, which pays a premium for electricity that comes from small-scale renewable projects. In the case of wind, it's 11 cents per kilowatt-hour. Solar fetches 42 cents per kilowatt hour, nearly four times as much.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist's weekly Toronto Star column reports that the Canadian broadcasting community, including broadcasters, copyright collectives, and actor labor unions, are all calling on Canada's broadcast regulator to increase its regulation of the Internet. Some groups want sites such as YouTube to be subject to Canadian content requirements, while the broadcasters want to stop U.S. broadcasters from streaming television shows online into Canada."

CokeJunky writes "During a weekend maintenance window, the Canada Revenue Agency (Fills the same role as the IRS south of the border) experienced data corruption issues in the tax databases. As a precaution, they have disabled all electronic filling services, and paper based returns will be stacking up in the mail room, as returns cannot be filed at all until the problem is fixed. Apparently on Monday they discovered tax fillings submitted electronically where the social insurance number, and the date of birth were swapped."

An anonymous reader sends us a link to the Toronto Star, where Michael Geist has a terrific article on how the record labels got the Internet completely wrong. While somewhat specific to Canada, the article' arguments are more broadly applicable. The article links together the misplaced reliance on DRM and the Canadian industry's advocacy for increasing levies on blank media to demonstrate just how wrong-headed this strategy has turned out to be.

Russell McOrmond writes "With Microsoft's Vista set to hit stores tomorrow, Michael Geist's weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) looks at the legal and technical fine print behind the operating system upgrade. The article notes that in the name of shielding consumers from computer viruses and protecting copyright owners from potential infringement, Vista seemingly wrestles control of the "user experience" from the user. If you are a Canadian and think that the owner of computers should be in control of what they own, rather than some third party (whether virus authors or the manufacturer/maker), then please sign our Petition to protect Information Technology property rights."

An anonymous reader writes "Copyfighting law professor Michael Geist, who previously uncovered financial links between recording industry lobbyists and Canada's Minister of Canadian Heritage Bev Oda (who is responsible for copyright policy), has now identified what big cash donations will get you. He reports that Oda met with the President of the Canadian Recording Industry Association on a monthly basis last year just as the government was preparing copyright reform legislation and Canadian artists were calling for an end to P2P lawsuits. Is it any wonder that Canadians seem likely to lose their fair use rights?"

eldavojohn wonders: "With the recent acquisition of YouTube by Google, there has been a lot of speculation (on both Slashdot & The Toronto Star) that we are nearing the second economic bubble created largely in part by growth in the digital sector. While one may be able to debate that the revenue from advertising and sales can indeed back this growth, are we headed towards the second bubble and, if so, how hard is it going to pop? Keep in mind that popular voodoo economic theory has attributed the first bubble phenomenon to 'a combination of rapidly increasing stock prices, individual speculation in stocks, and widely available venture capital.' I think we're experiencing all those, although it is not as flagrant as it was during the first bubble. What do you think?"

Crackberry Guy writes "Research In Motion, the maker of the Blackberry, is looking into offering a wireless device that aims to thwart thieves and ease the minds of those who are prone to misplacing their handheld units. According to the recent patent application, the new device would be carried in a holster armed with a wireless transceiver. The handheld unit could be switched to a pickpocket mode so that once it's removed from the holster, a wireless alert message would be sent to the user. Unless a user authentication code is input in a predetermined length of time, the device's data would be rendered unusable."

westcoaster004 writes "Identity thieves in Canada have begun targeting the homes of their victims. Recently, several cases of mortgage and title fraud have involved identity theft; several individuals have had their houses sold without their knowledge. Ontario's land-registry system does not currently protect homeowners from such fraud, but instead favors banks, mortgage companies, and purchasers. The provincial government is however working to solve the problem."

westcoaster004 writes "Identity thieves in Canada have begun targeting the homes of their victims. Recently, several cases of mortgage and title fraud have involved identity theft; several individuals have had their houses sold without their knowledge. Ontario's land-registry system does not currently protect homeowners from such fraud, but instead favors banks, mortgage companies, and purchasers. The provincial government is however working to solve the problem."

Lev13than writes "An article in the Toronto Star questions whether the battle between LCD and Plasma is the next VHS vs. Beta: "LCD is now in plasma country, and this means war — a war some say plasma can't hope to win". Rationale for LCD's victory include plasma's burn-in vs. LCD's ruggedness, improved images and falling prices. While the Beta analogy isn't particularly helpful (since both technologies play the same content), the article does raise interesting points."