Techdirt
ACTA Approval On Hold While EU Commission Asks EU Court Of Justice To Weigh In
- Wed, 22 Feb 2012
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It appears that ACTA's main political backers, the EU Commission, have finally realized that they were increasingly in trouble in terms of actually getting ACTA ratified. The EU's main negotiator on ACTA, Karel De Gucht has now said that the Commission is going to ask the EU Court of Justice to weigh in on ACTA:In recent weeks, the ratification process of ACTA has triggered a Europe-wide debate on ACTA, the freedom of the internet and the...
NSA: 'Anonymous Might One Day Hack Power Grids!' Anonymous: 'Huh?!?'
- Wed, 22 Feb 2012
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The fight to ramp up the fear mongering over cybersecurity has reached new and even more ridiculous levels -- in which an "anonymous" government source claims (without quotations) that the head of the NSA, Gen. Keith Alexander, recently briefed the White House claiming that the non-group Anonymous might be able to mount a cyberattack to take down parts of the power grid. The dubious sourcing already makes the story suspect, and without more...Techdirt Deemed Harmful To Minors In Germany
- Wed, 22 Feb 2012
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Hanno alerts us to the news that Techdirt has apparently been deemed harmful to minors in Germany. The German Media Control Authority has apparently been pushing internet "youth filters" to protect kids from dangerous things online. So far, it has officially approved two internet filters. Hanno got his hands on one and discovered that Techdirt was one of many blocked sites (Google translation from the original German) -- as the filter...Entertainment Industry Embraces New Business Model: Suing Google For Third-Party Android Apps That 'Promote Piracy'
- Wed, 22 Feb 2012
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Who says the entertainment industry can't embrace new business models? From their hamfisted attempts to make digital movie distribution less convenient than driving to the store and purchasing a DVD to their recent "collateral revamping" of various cloud services, the entertainment industry has never been more flexible.Plagiarism Today points us in the bold new direction the entertainment industry will be heading in the future. More...
FTC Reminds EPIC That Suing The FTC To Get It To Investigate Google Might Not Be The Best Idea
- Wed, 22 Feb 2012
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If you're unfamiliar with EPIC, it's an extremist "privacy" rights group. We've called the group out in the past for its rather ridiculous position on privacy issues. EPIC has particularly had it in for Google, which it appears to think is the evilest of evil sites and the government has to step in and stop it from collecting information to make your search experience better (even if users can block such data collection themselves). What I...European Commission Suggests ACTA's Opponents Don't Have 'Democratic Intentions'
- Wed, 22 Feb 2012
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Last week, we had a story about the IFPI (the international equivalent of the RIAA) saying that the ACTA protests were trying to "silence the democratic process". You might have thought that was bad enough, but here's worse.
Netzpolitik.org points us to leaked internal minutes of a meeting of the European Commission the day before the massive Europe-wide demonstrations against ACTA. They reveal the EU's top politicians taken aback by the...
The 'New' Righthaven Offers Discount To Techdirt Readers Who Want 'Spineful' Hosting
- Wed, 22 Feb 2012
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Remember Righthaven? No, not that Righthaven who sued tons of people and companies on questionable claims in order to get them to cough up settlements. We're talking about the other Righthaven... the Swiss company that bought the Righthaven.com domain that was auctioned off after the old Righthaven failed to pay the attorneys' fees it owed. The new Righthaven is all about being the anti-Righthaven in many ways: it's about setting up an ISP...Megaupload Boss Kim Dotcom Granted Bail After US Fails To Prove He's Got Cash Stashed Away To Make An Escape
- Wed, 22 Feb 2012
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Whatever you might think of Kim Dotcom (originally Schmitz), the founder of Megaupload, he at least deserves a fair trial. US officials had worked hard to keep him locked up without bail, but a New Zealand court has finally granted him bail after no one could show him having access to vast funds elsewhere that he could use to make a run for it. Apparently, US officials insisted that he must have those funds, but couldn't produce any evidence,...Smart TVs: Not Such A Smart Idea
- Wed, 22 Feb 2012
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A Smart TV is a TV that includes at least a rudimentary OS, access to web and Internet functions, and streaming content. They have been a hot product category at the last two CES shows, and the rumor that Apple is about to launch one is adding fuel to the fire. The Apple rumor is somewhat reliable, since it is partly based on a quote from the Steve Jobs biography where Jobs says of the Smart TV: "I finally cracked it."But having looked closely...
DailyDirt: Misty Water-Colored Memories
- Wed, 22 Feb 2012
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There's a lot we still don't know about how our own brains work. Our minds are sufficiently complex that the only practical way to begin studying how they work is to categorize the different processes and try to look at how those individual parts operate. How the brain stores memories is a fascinating field -- that's just starting to yield some real scientific knowledge. Here are just a few tidbits on remembering things.
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