p2pnet World Headlines – July 9, 2009
Filmmakers speak out against management of web traffic Financial Post
Canada’s largest Internet providers are having a chilling effect on independent filmmakers by slowing down certain Internet technologies that enable producers to distribute movies and other programming online, federal regulators heard Wednesday. Increasingly, independent filmmakers and television producers are turning to online peer-to-peer technologies as a primary means of distributing their creations in the face of rising competition for broadcast time from Hollywood studios. However, some of Canada’s largest Internet service providers (ISPs) employ traffic-management practices that slow down certain forms of web traffic they say congest their networks. These are usually peer-to-peer technologies such as BitTorrent that are used to transfer large amounts of data, including movies. “As a producer, I’ve seen the Canadian feature market shrink, I’ve seen the Canadian television market disappear,” said Brad Fox, a producer with Toronto’s Strada Films. “As someone who would like to be producing five years from now, there’s only one avenue of hope to me, and that’s that the Internet.”
Murdoch papers paid £1m to gag phone-hacking victims The Guardian
Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers has paid out more than £1m to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of his journalists’ repeated involvement in the use of criminal methods to get stories. The payments secured secrecy over out-of-court settlements in three cases that threatened to expose evidence of Murdoch journalists using private investigators who illegally hacked into the mobile phone messages of numerous public figures to gain unlawful access to confidential personal data, including tax records, social security files, bank statements and itemised phone bills. Cabinet ministers, MPs, actors and sports stars were all targets of the private investigators. Today, the Guardian reveals details of the suppressed evidence, which may open the door to hundreds more legal actions by victims of News Group, the Murdoch company that publishes the News of the World and the Sun, as well as provoking police inquiries into reporters who were involved and the senior executives responsible for them.
Former Teen Hacker’s Suicide Linked to TJX Probe Wired
Miami man who achieved fame as a teenager for hacking NASA and the Pentagon took his own life last year after Secret Service agents accused him of being part of the conspiracy responsible for the largest identity theft in U.S. history, his family says. Jonathan James, 24, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his home on May 18, 2008, less than two weeks after agents raided his house in connection with a hacking ring that penetrated TJX, DSW and OfficeMax, among others. In a five page suicide note, James wrote that he was innocent, but was certain federal officials would make him a scapegoat. “I have no faith in the ‘justice’ system,” he wrote. ” Perhaps my actions today, and this letter, will send a stronger message to the public. Either way, I have lost control over this situation, and this is my only way to regain control.” [Also see RIAA victim Jammie Thomas in Kazaa promo ]
Censordyne: net censoring gets a toothpasting The Age
Toothpaste is the latest weapon mobilised to fight against the Federal Government’s plan to censor the internet. Online activist group GetUp, which has already run ads slamming the internet filtering policy, today launched a new campaign – Censordyne – a parody ad playing on the Sensodyne brand of toothpaste. Censordyne promises to offer “unproven, ineffective relief from internet nasties”, protection “against fast internet” and a “fresh multimillion-dollar flavour”.
Prof. Nesson responds to Order to Show Cause Recordi9ng Industry vs The People
Prof. Nesson has filed his response to the order to show cause in SONY BMG Music Entertainment. v. Tenenbaum. Response to order to show cause
U.S. government Web sites attacked; North Korea suspected Associated Press
A widespread computer attack that began July 4 knocked out the Web sites of the Treasury Department, the Secret Service and other U.S. government agencies, according to officials inside and outside the government. Sites in South Korea were also affected, and South Korean intelligence officials believe the attack was carried out by North Korean or pro-Pyongyang forces. The U.S. government Web sites, which also included those of the Federal Trade Commission and the Transportation Department, were all down at varying points over the holiday weekend and into this week. South Korean Internet sites began experiencing problems Tuesday. U.S. officials refused to publicly discuss details of the cyber attack.
Microsoft is planning an Office party on Monday Neowin
Microsoft is planning to announce Office Web Applications and the Office 2010 beta at the company’s annual Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans next Monday. Neowin hinted at the announcements yesterday but insider sources have confirmed that the company will be demonstrating the delayed Office Web Applications and announcing its plans for the Office 2010 beta.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
July, 2009
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July 9th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
I was voting on Sourceforge Community Choice awards, when I found this:
http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome
Look at your computer setup and imagine that you hooked up a 3D printer. Instead of printing on bits of paper this 3D printer makes real, robust, mechanical parts. To give you an idea of how robust, think Lego bricks and you’re in the right area. You could make lots of useful stuff, but interestingly you could also make most of the parts to make another 3D printer. That would be a machine that could copy itself.
RepRap is short for Replicating Rapid-prototyper. It is the practical self-copying 3D printer shown on the right – a self-replicating machine. This 3D printer builds the parts up in layers of plastic. This technology already exists, but the cheapest commercial machine would cost you about €30,000. And it isn’t even designed so that it can make itself. So what the RepRap team are doing is to develop and to give away the designs for a much cheaper machine with the novel capability of being able to self-copy (material costs are about €500). That way it’s accessible to small communities in the developing world as well as individuals in the developed world.
….
Adrian Bowyer (left) and Vik Olliver (right) with a parent RepRap machine, made on a conventional rapid prototyper, and the first complete working child RepRap machine, made by the RepRap on the left. The child machine made its first successful grandchild part at 14:00 hours UTC on 29 May 2008 at Bath University in the UK, a few minutes after it was assembled.
Not counting nuts and bolts RepRap can make 60% of its parts; the other parts are designed to be cheaply available everywhere. This is an interesting coincidence: we can make 60% of our proteins; the other parts are evolved to be cheaply available everywhere…
…
To increase that 60%, the next version of RepRap will be able to make its own electric circuitry – a technology we have already proved experimentally – though not its electronic chips. After that we’ll look to doing transistors with it, and so on…
So, what I can say is that copyright nazi won’t be happy at all, because this is the first step into copying hardware. Starting slow and moving forward.