For data centers, uptime is mandatory, even if the buses and trains aren’t running on time. That’s an issue on the minds of data center in operators in London, which may see its transit system tested by the huge crowds expected for the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Interxion today unveiled “sleeping pods” at its London data center campus, allowing staff to sleep amongst the racks to ensure that the facility will be fully staffed throughout the Games.

Countering claims from the movie industry that Hotfile has few non-infringing uses, the Professor shows that the most downloaded files on the cyberlocker are Open Source software.

While the MPAA and others claim that affiliate programs which compensate users for generating downloads are solely setup to promote infringements, several software developers actually use them to generate revenue from their free programs.

“This suggests that the Hotfile Affiliate program is capable of fulfilling the valuable function of compensating authors and distributors,” Boyle adds.

The Syrian government has failed to send a "powerful political signal of peace", UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan has told the UN Security Council.

Syrian opposition representatives have said they are committed to the peace plan but that if government troops did not stop firing by Thursday, they would intensify their own operations.

The "good news" here is that the patents don't end up in the hands of a pure patent troll, who will do nothing but sue over them. The bad news, of course, is that Microsoft is quite aggressive in suing others for patent infringement anyway, and you can expect some of these patents to start showing up in wasteful, innovation-hindering lawsuits before too long.

Peter Kafka notes that Microsoft basically bought all Netscape assets outside of the name/trademarks, etc.

In this instance, the company offered up wall posts, a list of friends (complete with Facebook IDs), detailed data of logins and IP addresses, as well as all the photos Markoff posted or was tagged in.

However, it's not like normal human spontaneity, which can dissipate and become a memory. It's recorded.

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past week, you've probably heard about Flashback, a piece of malware targeting users of Apple's Mac OS X that's now estimated to be quietly running on more than 600,000 machines around the world.

While earlier versions that relied on a piece of software meant to look like Adobe's Flash installer were squashed as part of security updates, this latest variant went through Java instead. Oracle updated Java to patch the vulnerability the attackers were going through in February, though Apple took longer to patch the version it maintains and delivers to users through its software update tool.

"Flashback was patched by Adobe for all major platforms back in February, but Apple only patched it this week," Schoewenberg said. "Waiting two months is not acceptable, and we see OS X threats evolving."

Carpathia recently complained that maintaining the servers was costing thousands of dollars per day. The hosting company asked to either be compensated for the expenses of running the servers or be given permission to re-provision them for use by other customers.

Megaupload argues that the government may have "cherry picked" the data that will cast Megaupload in the most negative possible light. The company argues that allowing the rest of the data to be destroyed will make it impossible for Megaupload to unearth evidence that could cast the company in a more favorable light.

While movie studios and record labels would have you think that torrents are a threat to the movie and music industries, thousands of independent artists heartily disagree.

So far, The Pirate Bay's promos have been very successful for the featured artists. George Barnett, who was one of the first featured artists on The Promo Bay, said the boost from The Pirate Bay helped him add 4,000 new Facebook fans and 85,000 new views on his video.

In 1994, the agricultural giant Monsanto obtained a patent covering a line of "Roundup Ready" crops that had been genetically modified to resist Monsanto's Roundup herbicide. This genetic modification is hereditary, so future generations of seeds are also "Roundup Ready." Farmers had only to save a portion of their crop for re-planting the next season, and they wouldn't need to purchase new seed from Monsanto every year.

But Monsanto countered that each new generation of seeds is a separate product and thus requires a separate patent license. In effect, Monsanto contends that Bowman is illegally "manufacturing" infringing soybeans.

Newly obtained documents reveal that State Department counselor Philip Zelikow told the Bush team in 2006 that using the controversial interrogation techniques were “prohibited” under U.S. law — “even if there is a compelling state interest asserted to justify them.”

Those techniques included contorting a detainee’s body in painful positions, slamming a detainee’s head against a wall, restricting a detainee’s caloric intake, and waterboarding.

“We are unaware of any precedent in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, or any subsequent conflict for authorized, systematic interrogation practices similar to those in question here,” Zelikow wrote, “even where the prisoners were presumed to be unlawful combatants.