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The MPAA (or rather, the MPAA's law firm) is now sending out demand letters to Web sites which they are accusing of violating the Digital Millenium Copyright Act by posting, or even linking to, the css-auth code. One recipient's draft response looks to be quite succinct. Wired is also running a summary of the legal maneuvers surrounding CSS.

[Aside: The strategy here is fairly clear: file suit against a few individuals who can be characterized as "hackers", "copyright pirates" or whatever the appropriate derogatory term is today, wait until that story hits the press, then use a search engine and the whois database to locate and send scary letters off to hundreds or thousands of other sites which post or link to the LiViD code.

The MPAA realizes, of course, that they cannot file suit against everyone who has posted the css-auth code. So for the suits that it does file, it's important to pick people who call themselves "hackers" and can be characterized as thieves to the court, whether they've actually committed any offense or not. Thus they chose defendants such as 2600.com rather than more "respectable" individuals.]

Ian Davis writes "This Geoworks Press Release announces that they have U.S. and Japanese patents dating from 1994 covering some the essentials of the WAP and WML specs. They're demanding a license fee of $20,000 per year from all WAP phone manufacturers as well as WAP site owners. The WAP Forum have acknowledged the patent and their policy is to allow it provided the owners provide fair access to the technology covered. What do people think? Is this a fatal blow to U.S.-based WAP startups? Will it give the Europeans an even bigger lead in the WAP market?" The $20,000/year fee for WAP Web site operators is only for companies with $1 million or more in annual revenue. This _may_ not be as bad as it sounds.

RuntimeError writes "The Times of UK report that a group of British Cr/Hackers have broken into the computer systems of atleast 12 multinational companies, stolen confidential files, and are holding the companies to ransom." One of the companies is Visa, as in credit cards. I believe this has far more hysteria potential than the recent CDuniverse inforansom scandal. Expect the usual pundits to be all over this story within the next few days.

peter303 writes "Todays LA Times has an article on how high speed InterNet access (defined as 10 Mbit ethernet in your dormroom or 100+ times T-1/ISDN/fast modem) is revolutionizing college life: such things as routine streaming video and free long distance phone calls. It is creating a generation of "speed-junkies" that is affecting college admissions, employment and housing decisions, and propelling consumer demand for high bandwidth pipes. " Bandwidth convinced me to move on campus. The lack of bandwidth nearly kept me there (despite paying like 4x as much as I did simply renting a house nearby). Its very true.

hill writes "An article over on Economic Times explains why BSD is as not as popular as Linux. Both use an open-source model, but Linux demands the user community to disclose modifications on its source code, while BSD allows its users to make proprietary changes. The current size of the BSD community is estimated at 2 million, with Linux being around 10 million. This is definately worth the read for anyone interested in comparing the two operating systems. " I'm sure we have a few opinions on the subject.

Robert Wilde writes "Bleem claims in a countersuit that Sony has misued copyrights and patents to restrain trade and maintain it's Playstation monopoly. In addition, the Judge rebuked Sony's attempts to demand access to the identities of Bleem's customers. " David and Goliath all over again - it's been quite a while since we've talked about this case. Still, another indication in patent sanity, perhaps?

I've been jipped! TBS proclaims 15 days of bond, and I'm pleased as punch. Already watched Diamonds are Forever, Licensed to Kill, Octopussy (skipped Goldfinger since I have the DVD and somehow watching it pan & scan with commercials doesn't seem so cool). I love Bond (The World is Not Enough is a decent bond flick. It ain't no Moonraker tho *cough* cough).

Anyway, the point of this rambling. Tongiht I'm all happy 'cuz I'll get to watch some JB action. I've had a few stressful days, and I'm looking forward to a few relaxing ones before things get super hectic again, and watching Girls, Guns, and Spies seemed perfect. So I check TBSs website. First off their schedule is screwed up (404, file not found) second their 'James Bond' Movie page turns out to be blank. Very ameteurish. That bums me out. But then I notice in huge glaring letters 'Tonight on TBS' where they proclaim that tonight's James Bond movie is... Houston @ Phoenix!

Basketball! Its friggin 15 days of Bond and they're showing me basketball? What kind of conspiracy is this? I demand a refund for 1 of my days of Bond. I want to watch Dr. No or something on day 16 as a refund for them showing a freakin' basketball game during quality time that by all rights I should have spent with Sean Connery. Or at least Roger Moore.

Its a conspiracy I tell ya.

Effugas writes "The technology isn't new--Tesla coils have been around for a century. However, I doubt very many of us have seen much like the pictures located at Lightning On Demand--consider that, for most of these displays of extreme electrical discharge, there's a guy sitting *inside* the main electrode. I'm trying to imagine sitting in a metal ball while thirty foot electrical streamers erupt around me. Got Drool? "

Gino writes "Model Technology Inc. will be making their two most powerful tools ModelSim(TM) EE and SE available for the Linux platform in VHDL, Verilog and mixed HDL configurations. Demand for Linux support has been tremendous, apparently due to customer migration to simulator farm environments - multiple node machines configured with Linux as simulation farms proofed to be quite effective. It is good news to see the big HDL boys paying attention to Linux at last. "

Anonymous Coward writes "VARBusiness has an article about how Tom Adelstein's Bynari, Inc. is using Linux as the basis of a whole new business model for his Dallas integration firm. In it he talks about the value of call centers and partnerships within the Open Source community. Click here for the full interview. " Everyone who dreams of owning their own Linux-based small busines, but doesn't have a lot of capital, must read this story. You don't have to follow the interviewee's business model, but he's sure got one thing right: The demand for Linux systems integrators and VARs is going to grow like mad!

December writes "Short article about Coca Cola testing vending machines that raise the price when temperatures rise. " I can see it now: at a hundred degrees it'll cost 2 bucks. And 105 it'll cost 20. At 110 it'll cost as much as a minivan and at 120 it'll cost ya your pension and 401k. It'll still be cheaper than the freakin' movie theater.

Mad Browser noted that Handspring is having troubles. Massive hold times, downed computers, people getting charged multiple times for their orders. Its either a sloppy system, or a lot of demand.

~fly~ writes "Tom's has a detailed review with benchmarks of Nvidia's new GeForce256 'GPU'. " The synopsis: High expectations, but it appears to meet the demand.

Stand.org.uk has taken issue with the UK's proposed new e-commerce bill in a novel fashion. The Bill includes an assortment of new powers for law enforcement to combat the spread of that dread menace, cryptography. Police can demand that you decrypt and provide the keys for any encrypted communications in your possession - with a penalty of two years in jail. But what if you don't have the key? An excellent letter and even more excellent photo-essay. -- michael

Christopher Bibbs writes "Microsoft is trying once again to rally the troops and let Congress know that the American people want them to back off. They also have a pretty funny letter to the shareholders over here." The shareholder letter says, "Regardless of your perspective, this tool will allow you to share your views, send a letter or email to your elected officials..." There's also an invitation to "call us at 1-888-642-4097." Remember, polite comments do more good than nasty ones, regardless of your perspective. ;-)

hfcs asks: "I'm looking for sources for an affordable, 4-6 channel, compact, stereo, line-level audio mixer. In my office I have 4 PCs (Linux, W95, NT, Mac) and CD player, each demanding their own speakers for audio output. Low end pro-sumer stuff (Radio Shack & the like) start at $200 for this, but it's huge. Decent mixers start well above that. A master volume would be nice, but since each device can do it's own output level, so I don't need channel level control. I just want to be able to hook everything up to one nice set of amplified speakers rather than 4 independent mediocre sets without damaging any of the sources. Any suggestions?"

Szoup writes "Wired has online a piece (no pun intended) under their culture news about how the sex life of tech employees -- mainly programmers -- suffers due to the demands and amount of time their work takes away from them. Like I needed to be told this?" Update: here's another take on the subject from newtimesla.com.

zealot writes "According to this article, the SETI@Home project is not using the most optimized clients available "just to brake the unit turn around" so that they can continue to recieve various contributions. The authors are also demanding access to the client source (and asking to GPL it if possible), so the greatest performance may be obtained. " It's an interesting point: They didn't figure on getting the reponse they did, and will sooner rather then later run out of blocks to be crunched. Yep: What happens if hold a war and /everyone/ comes? Or a distributed program, I guess.

proBETA asks: "Is there a GNU tool for making tutorials? With a rising demand for documentation, a common tool would be great. So I just wonder if there are any such projects going on. How about recording and playback of X-windows (with mouse movement, typing, and graphics) along with explaining text boxes."

Non-Newtonian Fluid writes "The Register has an interesting article which explains exactly how Linux could rise up and defeat M$ by taking advantage of the Easy PC specification and Micro$oft's own inability to keep pace with the demands of new hardware. " The article also mentions BeOS and other possible Windows competitors. A good "makes you think" piece.