p2pnet World Headlines: Nov 23, 2009
Microsoft and News Corp eye web pact Financial Times
Microsoft has had discussions with News Corp over a plan that would involve the media company’s being paid to “de-index” its news websites from Google, setting the scene for a search engine battle that could offer a ray of light to the newspaper industry. The impetus for the discussions came from News Corp, owner of newspapers ranging from the Wall Street Journal of the US to The Sun of the UK, said a person familiar with the situation, who warned that talks were at an early stage. However, the Financial Times has learnt that Microsoft has also approached other big online publishers to persuade them to remove their sites from Google’s search engine. News Corp and Microsoft, which owns the rival Bing search engine, declined to comment.
Games ‘permit’ virtual war crimes BBC
Video games depicting war have come under fire for flouting laws governing armed conflicts. Human rights groups played various games to see if any broke humanitarian laws that govern what is a war crime. The study condemned the games for violating laws by letting players kill civilians, torture captives and wantonly destroy homes and buildings. It said game makers should work harder to remind players about the real world limits on their actions.
Smoking Near Apple Computers Creates Biohazard, Voids Warranty Consumerist
Unless you’ve just arrived in 2009 on a time machine, you know that smoking isn’t good for you. Did you know, that smoking isn’t good for your computer, either? It’s true, at least according to Apple. Two readers in different parts of the country claim that their Applecare warranties were voided due to secondhand smoke. Both readers appealed their cases up to the office of God Steve Jobs himself. Both lost.
Some theaters trapped in 2nd dimension by credit freeze USA TODAY
Hollywood executives likely will credit director James Cameron if his megabudget sci-fi film Avatar strikes gold for Fox next month. But there’s a ready scapegoat if it disappoints: When the credit markets froze more than a year ago, banks and other lenders didn’t invest in the digital-projection technology needed to show films in 3-D. That was a setback for Avatar, which was designed to showcase 3-D’s artistic potential. The film should appear in 3-D domestically on nearly 3,500 screens, Fox distribution chief Bruce Snyder guesses. “They’re still putting (3-D systems) in as we speak,” he says. But Cameron hoped for 5,000 screens two years ago. The movie will also run in conventional 2-D.
Does AT&T turn into a pumpkin in June? CNN Money
Its Cinderella contract with Apple for the iPhone runs out in seven months, says one analyst Broadpoint AmTech’s Brian Marshall, who has replaced Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster as the most bullish of the mainstream Apple analysts, made several assertions of fact in an Bloomberg TV interview Friday that â if true â struck me as newsworthy. Chief among them: The contract that gives AT&T (T) exclusive access in the U.S. to Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone expires in June 2010; Apple is now getting a $450; The 4% of AT&T subscribers who use the iPhone consume roughly 40% of the network’s bandwidth.
iPhone owners demand to see Apple source code Computerworld
iPhone owners charging Apple and AT&T with breaking antitrust laws asked a federal judge this week to force Apple to hand over the iPhone source code, court documents show. The lawsuit, which was filed in October 2007, accuses Apple and AT&T of violating antitrust laws, including the Sherman Act, by agreeing to a multi-year deal that locks U.S. iPhone owners into using the mobile carrier.
Potty-mouths charged for Comcast hijack The Register
The potty-mouthed hackers who hijacked Comcast’s domain name for several hours last year were charged with intentionally damaging a protected computer system. Christopher Allen Lewis, 19, of Delaware, James Robert Black Jr., 20, of Washington, and Michael Paul Nebel, 27, of Michigan were indicted Thursday on a single felony count. In May 2008, the trio commandeered the comcast.net domain name and caused people who tried to visit the site to check email and listen to voicemail to be directed to page that bragged about the exploit, prosecutors allege. Based on the six-page document filed in federal court in Pennsylvania, it appears the men gained control of the Comcast address by social engineering one of its employees. A night before the attack, they called the person listed as a contact for comcast.net at home “and asked the employee if he would answer questions concerning” fearnet.com, a separate domain owned by Comcast.
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November, 2009
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