Vietnam police detain dissident blogger Washington Post
A Vietnamese blogger who criticized the Communist Party`s policies has been detained by police, his close friend said Monday, days after another popular blogger was fired from his job at a state-controlled newspaper. Bui Thanh Hieu, who writes his blog under the pen name Nguoi Buon Gio or Wind Trader, was taken into police custody in Hanoi on Thursday, said a close friend, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal . Earlier this year, the government tightened its rules for bloggers, requiring that they must restrict their writings to personal matters. A blogger known as Dieu Cay was charged with tax evasion and sentenced to 30 months in jail after encouraging people to protest at the Olympic torch ceremonies in Ho Chi Minh City shortly before last summer`s Beijing Olympics. He criticized China`s policies in Tibet and the Spratly islands.

Reaction to the Cellphone Cost Calculator Story Michael Geist
My column on the decision to kill the cellphone cost calculator generated considerable reaction: * The Liberal party issued a press release criticizing the decision and arguing that it placed the wireless industry ahead of consumers. * The CBC covered the story, including comments from the CWTA, PIAC, and Bell (it should be noted that Bell indicates that it did not meet with officials specifically on the cellphone calculator but rather left the issue to the CWTA). * Catherine Middleton points out the FCC is asking questions about similar consumer disclosures and cost comparisons. * Readers have pointed to two other private comparison sites – cellphones.ca and cellplanexpert.ca.

Toronto Copyright Townhall: Canadian Record Industry Mobilizes In Panic, Everyone Loses Out TechDirt
The Canadian record industry was demanding to be lied to, to be told that more restrictive copyright laws will save their business. Though fewer and fewer people can convincingly tell the lie, they seemed perfectly capable of convincing each other that restrictive copyright legislation might somehow stop the market from changing (even with a decade of hindsight on the DMCA). It`s tragic, because hard working people who love music and love working for artists are losing their jobs, but the industry continues to block the sort of innovations that could provide it with a way forward. A lawyer described the music industry as a copyright industry, even though most artists and companies who are figuring out how to make money in the digital economy are successful despite copyright — not because of it. Artist voices were few (nevermind consumer voices),

Thailand offers free vacations to Net-savvy travellers Canoe
Attention Internet-savvy travellers: Thailand is giving away free trips to five lucky couples who don`t mind sitting in front of a computer while on vacation. The Tourism Authority of Thailand launched a new campaign Tuesday offering five couples fully paid trips to the country`s most popular cities and beaches. In return, they will be asked to blog, chat and tweet about their holiday in a bid to win a grand prize of $10,000, a BlackBerry and a video camera. [Comment: Isn't this the place that arrested an Aussie guy for what he wrote?]

Mobile phone towers threaten honey bees: study Canada.Com
The electromagnetic waves emitted by mobile phone towers and cellphones can pose a threat to honey bees, a study published in India has concluded. An experiment conducted in the southern state of Kerala found that a sudden fall in the bee population was caused by towers installed across the state by cellphone companies to increase their network. The electromagnetic waves emitted by the towers crippled the navigational skills of the worker bees that go out to collect nectar from flowers to sustain bee colonies, said Dr. Sainuddin Pattazhy, who conducted the study, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. He found that when a cell phone was kept near a beehive, the worker bees were unable to return, leaving the hives with only the queens and eggs and resulting in the collapse of the colony within ten days.

London bus with 16 CCTV cameras inside BoingBoing
The bus we got was quite a new one, and right by the driver was a screen showing the feed from the sixteen CCTV cameras on this one bus. How much of that footage to they actually archive? For how long? And how much of it do they lose track of?

Ontario lottery corporation board resigns Montreal Gazette
The board of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation resigned en masse Monday as lavish expense claims by senior executives at the troubled agency surfaced. Over the last two years, senior staff at the OLG billed taxpayers for, among other things: expensive bottles of wine, a Weight Watchers membership, babysitters, luggage replacement, credit card fees, and a cloth grocery bag, according to documents released by the province.

US military cancels contract with firm that graded journalists` positiveness BoingBoing
Stars and Stripes reports that the U.S. military is terminating a $1.5 million contract with The Rendon Group, a private firm that produced background profiles of reporters who requested military embed access in Afghanistan. The firm graded journalists` past work as positive, negative or neutral. Military officials were presumed to be granting access to those whose profiles indicated they`d yield a future positive spin on reports from the battleground.

Dutch royals win privacy case against AP Washington Post
A court ruled Friday that The Associated Press violated the privacy of the Dutch royal family by photographing them on a skiing holiday in Argentina. The judge handed down an injunction against further distribution or sale of four images of Crown Prince Willem-Alexander`s family that were made available worldwide last month and widely used by the Dutch media. The AP expressed disappointment, and said the decision would unduly restrict news gathering globally and lead to the suppression of information about which the public had a right to know.

Police tell drummers to beat it Vancouver Sun
Stanley Park drummers who`ve been banging away until the sun sets were drummed out of the park recently because of noise complaints — but the sun hasn`t yet set on their fun.

EBay to sell stake in Skype for $1.9 billion Canoe
EBay Inc. says it has reached a deal to sell most of its stake in Skype in a deal it says values the online telecommunications service at US$2.75 billion. San Jose, Calif.-based eBay says it will get $1.9 billion in cash and a $125 million note from the buyer.

Apple sued by Mac clone maker over Snow Leopard IT Business
Apple is illegally tying the Snow Leopard operating system to Mac machines, according to clone maker Psystar – Mac clone maker Psystar Corp. last week sued Apple for a second time, charging that it illegally ties the new Snow Leopard operating system to Apple`s hardware. Psystar also asked a federal judge in Florida to rule that the small company has the right to purchase copies of Snow Leopard on the open market and use them to install Mac OS X 10.6 on the machines it sells.

Dell, HP back Microsoft`s appeal against Word ban IT Business
HP and Dell warn that if Microsoft were forced to modify Word this would require computer makers to change the software they install on their machines. This would entail expensive re-testing the two companies said.

Dreadful Ruling: Web Hosts Hit With $32 Million Judgment For Content On Customers` Websites TechDirt
Well, this is bad Earlier this year, we noted that a court had ruled that web hosting firms could be liable for trademark infringement done by their customers. The case involved luxury goods retailer Louis Vuitton suing some web hosting firms for the actions of their customers. Any common sense ruling would find that the hosts are simply the tool providers, and it was the customers running the actual websites who were liable. That is, if there were common sense. Instead, as Eric Goldman alerts us, the jury has sided with Louis Vuitton and awarded the company $32.4 million in damages from the web hosts.

NY residents sue for $100m over phone masts The Register
Residents are suing the Long Island town of Hempstead for allowing the installation of cell phone antennae, on the basis that it`s lowering the value of their properties. The claim is not regarding the potential health risks, as has been the case before, but that the local authority has been negligent in preventing brown boxes being fitted to telegraph poles without allowing for the inevitable reduction in property values that would result.

Optus email change angers customers Australian IT
OPTUS has been forced to halt the planned shut down of its optushome.com.au email domain after users complained of insufficient warning. Thousands of long-time Optus customers awoke this morning to find empty email inboxes after the telco last night flicked the off switch to its optushome.com.au email domain server.

Follow p2pnet on Twitter.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

August, 2009

---

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It`s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php

---

Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 at 1:27 pm and is filed under P2P. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

HOME

Viewed 1934 times