M&Mâs World Headlines: Mar 18, 2009
Tech-savvy Canada leads the world in online video viewership IT Business
More Canadians watch videos online than any other nation, according to new research from comScore’s Media Metrix. The study revealed that 88 per cent of Canadians with access to the Internet watched an online video during the month of January. Canada is a world leader in online video usage, said Bryan Segal, vice-president of comScore Canada. On a per capita basis, Canadians view more than 100 videos per viewer, per month. He said many Canadians are very tech-savvy and the popularity of online video stems from that.
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IBM in Talks to Buy Sun in Bid to Add To Web Heft – Wall Street Journal
International Business Machines Corp. is in talks to buy Sun Microsystems Inc. in a combination that would bolster IBM’s heft on the Internet, in data storage and in government and telecommunications areas, according to people familiar with the matter. The two companies have a common interest in that both make computer systems for corporate customers that aren’t reliant on Microsoft Corp.’s Windows software or Intel Corp.’s microprocessor technologies.
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Microsoft to the rescue: Canadians struggle mightily to manage multiple online personas IT Business
Socializing online is more than a pursuit for Canadians it’s a passion, a recent survey suggests. The study, which quizzed more than 1,000 adults across the country about their Web surfing habits, was commissioned by Microsoft Canada in Mississauga. The software firm is promoting the new “online profile aggregator” capabilities of Windows Live, the company’s personal Internet services and software offering. He said by not keeping tabs on their professional LinkedIn profile, Twitter account, or blog, knowledge workers might miss out on key professional opportunities. Worse still, they may fail to detect and deflect negative information about themselves, Assad said.
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DC Bar Association Claims Lawyer Rating Site Infringes Its Copyright Tech Dirt
There’s been no shortage of stories about misplaced anger (and sometimes lawsuits) filed against all kinds of rating sites lately, and the latest situation is equally questionable. Against Monopoly points us to the news that the Washington DC Bar Association has sent a cease-and-desist letter to lawyer-rating site, Avvo, claiming that Avvo’s use of information on the DC Bar’s website violates copyright and privacy rights.
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Rogue Australian sysadmin jailed over hacking spree The Register
A disgruntled contractor who hacked into government systems and deleted thousands of records in Australia’s Northern Territories has been jailed for three years and four months.
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With the new administration sticking by the old one in declaring negotiations over the ACTA treaty somehow a matter of national security as a way of avoiding revealing any info about the proposed treaty or its ongoing negotiations, the folks over at KEI have pointed out the long list of corporate lobbyists who have been involved in the negotiations, including those from the RIAA, MPAA, ESA and a long list of tech, telco and pharma companies. So… can anyone let us know if these folks have security clearance? After all, if they’re a part of such sensitive matters concerning national security that are so touchy the public can’t know about them… [Comment: List of ACTA advidors found here: http://www.keionline.org/blogs/2009/03/13/who-are-cleared-advisors/]
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Programmer replaces missing finger with thumb drive Sydney Morning Herald
A computer programmer who lost half his finger after his motorbike crashed into a deer has had the finger replaced with a USB drive. Jerry Jalava, from Finland, says the two-gigabyte prosthetic finger is not permanently attached to his hand, allowing him to leave his finger in the computer slot and “pick it up after I’m ready”.
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2009 Budget Includes $9.4 Million For FBI IP Enforcement Agents Tech Dirt
Approved by Congress and Obama, the FBI has nearly $10 million more dollars to spend on intellectual property enforcement. The money will fund 2 field officers at each existing Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property unit as well as the creation of a new unit at FBI headquarters to work specifically on multi-district IP cases.
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Google ‘Requests’ That We Not Copy Works That Are Already In The Public DomainTech Dirt
Computer scientist Steven Bellovin notes a troubling trend: companies that republish public domain works are increasingly trying to use contract law to place restrictions on their use. For example, Google is apparently in the habit of “requesting” that people only use the out-of-copyright works they’ve scanned for “personal, non-commercial purposes.” Even more troubling, works like this one ( http://catnyp.nypl.org/record=b6902918) that were produced by the US federal governmentâand have therefore never been subject to copyrightâcome with copyright-like notices stating that any use other than “individual research” requires a license.
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Leaked Red Cross report details Guantanamo torture CNews
The tales are horrifyingly medieval in nature – terror suspects beaten, bound and bleeding, forced into coffin-like boxes, shackled naked to their beds in darkened cells, deprived of food for weeks, forced underwater to the point of near-drowning, ordered to stand for days. But the macabre accounts of torture aren’t emerging from totalitarian dictatorships or Dark Ages gallows – this was the 21st century CIA, with the full knowledge of senior officials in George W. Bush’s administration, according to a secret Red Cross report. The Red Cross report was written shortly after Bush publicly declared that the U.S. did not and had not tortured detainees at the CIA’s notorious “black sites,” including detention facilities in other countries.
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Harlan Ellison Sues For “Star Trek” Episode Slashdot
“The ever-quotable speculative fiction writer Harlan Ellison has launched a lawsuit against Paramount and the Writer’s Guild West for rights to residuals surrounding his famous and award winning ‘City on the Edge of Forever’ episode for the original Star Trek.
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Little known Ontario Anti-terror law back for debate before courts CNews
A little-publicized decision in an Ontario court ruling has revived debate over the definition of terrorism under Canadian law, raising questions that could have repercussions in two key cases. The judgment, delivered by Justice Laurence Pattillo of Ontario Superior Court two weeks ago, upheld a contentious section of the federal Anti-Terrorism Act that defines terrorism as a crime motivated by ideological, political or religious considerations. “You don’t single out an individual because of their political, religious or ideological beliefs,” said Greenspon. “To do so violates fundamental freedoms.”
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Discovery sues Amazon.com over Kindle patent CTV
Discovery Communications Inc. says the Kindle electronic book readers from Amazon.com Inc. violate a patent that Discovery registered in 2007. Discovery sued Amazon in Delaware on Tuesday.
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Lawyers Use Juror’s Twitter Messages As Basis For Appeal Tech Dirt
Lawyers for an Arkansas building materials firm have appealed a $12.6 million judgment against the company, alleging that a juror’s Twitter messages show that he was biased against the company. The lawyers say tweets like “I just gave away TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS of somebody else’s money” and “oh and nobody buy Stoam. Its bad mojo and they’ll probably cease to Exist, now that their wallet is 12m lighter” illustrate that the juror was predisposed towards a verdict that would “impress his audience”.
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Scientists warn against wireless tech IT Web
Public health concerns and scientific evidence for risks from cellphones and other wireless devices have been published in the journal Pathophysiology, says MSNBC. “The scientific evidence tells us that our safety standards are inadequate, and that we must protect ourselves from exposure to EMF due to power lines, cellphones and the like.”
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UK Gov. Clueless About Own Internet Blacklist Slashdot
“Computer Shopper magazine has interviewed the UK Home Office about its relationship with the Internet Watch Foundation and discovered that the government doesn’t actually know what the IWF does, although it still plans to force UK ISPs to subscribe to the IWF’s blacklist. [Transcript of interview: http://blog.computershopper.co.uk/2009/03/home-office-interview-transcript.html see also, http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/news/249655/home-office-clueless-over-its-own-antichild-porn-measures.html]
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Maryland city under blogger siege, says outgoing mayor Beta News
The departing mayor of Salisbury, Maryland said that blogger intimidation may be more detimental to democracy than the financial crisis. [Comment: heh]
March, 2009
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March 18th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
and htat online video watching ends in may when BELL on the back end KILLS all the users of every ISP to 60 GB
where TSI paid for bulk bandwidth and bell is effectively ripping us all off
i did a little check and seems that with th enew fees the average user will have to shell out over 200$ a month
just ot have internet access and do as they would
even my own uses are so expensive now i must leave the net
casualty of greed
and because im too poor to afford it now
thanks harper ill remember this in every election for the rest of my natural life
March 18th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
and we gave them national security clearance when they effectively BRIBED our nations leaders into letting them have it.
LAST i checked bribery is and should be a hanging offense or life in prison of a federal official and might even if your a foreign person be a kind of treason, abolishing these lobbying rules of large corporate entities should be a top priority of any democratic govt
but it aint gonna happen when ya get a pittance form taxpayers compared to the scam money they give you
March 18th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
and here comes media now that they gave us wireless and the fear we will go stuff you and create mini intranets offline for our sharing needs
ya then ya going to get the swat teams out OMG they are sharing music and movies again.
KILL EM ALL.
March 19th, 2009 at 2:09 am
noob above needs a life
and ya anything that annoys him is worth exploring and already people are asking for it are you with a camera watching OH DARN forgot about that back driveway LOL
YOU GET the idiot of the day award buddy and we all can laugh more at you
March 19th, 2009 at 2:20 am
we look in yoour window and see hat you surf then wisper in our cell phones LOL
March 19th, 2009 at 2:21 am
we look in your window and see what you surf then whisper in our cell phones LOL