MPAA Kills More Innovation; Zediva Shut Down Permanently
Zediva, if you don't recall, let people rent movies remotely. It would load them up in a DVD player that you could log into. It legitimately bought the DVDs and used them just as you would at home if you rented a DVD and brought it home. The only real difference here was that the DVD player was at a central location, rather than your home. In a very weird ruling, a court determined that the length of the cord determines if something is infringing.
If you want to get a sense of the future under E-PARASITE/SOPA: this is it. Except it's even worse. Chris Dodd and the MPAA won't even need to go to court, they can just send a single notice to the payment processor for Zediva, and the plug would be pulled. Dead.
Qantas ordered to resume flights by tribunal ruling
An independent tribunal in Australia has ordered a permanent end to the industrial dispute that has grounded all Qantas flights.
Secretary of the ACTU union Jeff Lawrence said the ruling had made it clear that union action was not causing harm to the economy and that it was Qantas's actions that had brought the tribunal's intervention.
A Qantas statement on Saturday said all employees involved in industrial action would be locked out from Monday evening and flights grounded from 06:00 GMT on Saturday.
Made in China: Country's new supercomputer uses homegrown chips
China is stepping up its semiconductor manufacturing efforts and using domestic chips for its latest supercomputer. It's going to be interesting to see how fast China can close in on U.S. supercomputer processor makers Intel, AMD, and Nvidia.
The Wall Street Journal noted that the China domestic supercomputing effort is very credible and signals an effort to cut the country's reliance on western companies. It's unclear whether China's chips are completely original blueprints or based on a previous design.
Making UEFI Secure Boot Work With Open Platforms
"Secure boot" is a technology described by recent revisions of the UEFI specification; it offers the prospect of a hardware-verified, malware-free operating system bootstrap process that can improve the security of many system deployments. Linux and other open operating systems will be able to take advantage of secure boot if it is implemented properly in the hardware.
TSA misses loaded gun in bag at LAX
Despite all the extra airport security measures installed since the 2001 terror attacks, federal security officials at Los Angeles International Airport, or LAX, missed a loaded gun inside a checked bag on Sunday, the Los Angeles Times and other news organizations are reporting.
The .38-caliber handgun fell out of a duffel bag as a luggage ramp crew was loading it onto an Alaska Airlines flight to Portland, Ore., the Times reports.
BT gets 14 days to block Newzbin2
Websites and IP addresses will become unreachable for the first time in the UK for copyright reasons. The High Court has ordered BT to block subscribers access to Newzbin 2, as well as any other sites or end points it uses.
US movie studios brought the case over Usenet scraper Newzbin, and although BT tried to argue that copyright infringement wasn’t any of its business, and that policing it was intrusive, a court comprehensively rejected its arguments earlier this year.
5 SECONDS to bypass an iPad 2 password
Bypassing the unlock screen on iPad 2 can be accomplished by first pressing the power button until the power-off screen is displayed. Users then need only to close and reopen the fondleslab's 'smart cover' before, finally, pressing the cancel button to unlock the device.
One obvious workaround would be to instruct users to close any foreground application before locking their iPad.
Google dumps + from Boolean search tool
Google has quietly dropped the use of the + symbol to link search items, in a move it says will simplify the process of Boolean searching.
“We're constantly making changes to Google Search - adding new features, tweaking the look and feel, running experiments - all to get you the information you need as quickly and as easily as possible,” said Kelly Fee, Google Search community manager in a Google forum. “This recent change is another step toward simplifying the search experience to get you to the info you want.”
Near-Perfect Young Dinosaur Fossil Found in Bavaria
The fossil found in the central Bavarian community of Kelheim is about 98 percent complete, and also includes preserved bits of skin. "The around 135-million-year-old fossil is of outstanding scientific importance," dinosaur expert Rauhut told the German news agency DPA.
Though the 72-centimeter juvenile dinosaur is preserved in stone, a number of anatomical details remain. "The best-preserved Tyrannosaurus we have are about 80 percent preserved, and that is already terrific," said Rauhut, comparing the two theropods, which are among the rarest dinosaur fossils.
DARPA Proposes Ripping Up Dead Satellites To Make New Ones
DARPA reports that more than $300 billion worth of satellites are in the geosynchronous orbit, many retired due to failure of one component even if 90% of the satellite works just as well as the day it was launched. DARPA's Phoenix program seeks to develop technologies to cooperatively harvest and re-use valuable components such as antennas or solar arrays from retired, nonworking satellites in GEO and demonstrate the ability to create new space systems at greatly reduced cost.