When Skype and Intel announced their joint collaboration at last year's IDF, a lot of journos recognized the deal as preparation of the terrain for Intel-only features. Indeed, with the latest version of Skype, a product of eBay Inc - enabled 10-way conference calls, but only if Intel hardware was used. AMD users were treated with "only" a 5-way option. Both Skype and Intel claimed that this was due to new, superior Intel marchitecture.

However, since 10-way works on old NetBurst marchitecture (Pentium D) as well, it was obvious that this was a marketing plot for a marchitecture world.

Of course, until Maxxuss came along. Well known enthusiast from the sphere of MacOSX86 project took a look at Skype, whacked the marketing code and enabled 10-way conference using other processors. The "protection" was actually a string in code that checks for "GenuineIntel" string inside the CPU. If the La Intella is detected, 10-way works. If string returns something else, like "AuthenticAMD", boom! Only 5-way.

The Pentagon has released the names and home countries of many detainees who have been held at Guantanamo Bay prison for up to four years.

A Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by The Associated Press forced the Department of Defence on Friday to turn over some 5,000 pages of transcripts from closed-door hearings on the detainees, most of whom were accused of having links to the Taliban or al Qaida.

The Pentagon released the documents after a federal judge rejected arguments by the administration of US President George Bush that releasing names, home countries and other information would violate the detainees' privacy and could endanger them and their families.

About 490 prisoners are being held at Guantanamo Bay, but only 10 of them have been charged with a crime.

A michigan teacher has been suspended after her students produced a hard hitting documentary about the perils of Myspace.com.

Devon Fralick approved the eight minute documentary by two Lakeview High School students which tried to warn classmates about the dangers of putting personal information on the Internet.

Images were taken from the Myspace.com and blurred, but school administrators felt that the broadcast's message "was lost because of the selection of photographs, language and music" that was included.

Fralick was escorted from the school soon after the show was broadcast, much to the horror of the teens who made the show. Neil Willoughby, 17, a junior at the school who helped put together the presentation said that it was ludicrous as if anyone should take the heat for this, it should be him.

US marines stationed in Iraq are complaining that the US government is restricting access their access to websites too much.

Along with porn sites, on the Army's list of banned sites include mail sites such as Yahoo, AT&T, Hotmail. The censors are also blocking blogs and sites that do not agree with the current administration.

One marine wrote to a site called Wonkette to tell them that it was on the banned list. He said he didn't mind The Army blocking access to porn sites, because it was a government network but he and the troops were getting miffed that access to email and possibly-not-toeing-the-government-line websites was a bit much.

The buzz at the the recent Philadelphia Auto Show focused on a car that can go from zero to 60 in four seconds and get more than 50 miles to the gallon, running on soybean biodiesel fuel.

The innovative design didn't come from any car company--it came from five students at West Philadelphia High School, who built it as an after-school project.

According to a report on CBSNews.com, the project not only produced a car, it helped turn struggling kids earning C's and D's into straight-A students.

In a statement, the DOJ said Derek Borchardt, 21, of North Carolina; Matthew Howard, 24, of Colorado; and Aaron Jones, 31, of Oregon obtained the music through insiders at record companies, magazine publishers and retail outlets. Songs were stored on servers run by the group.

In a separate action, the Record Industry Association of America announced it had filed another 750 lawsuits against unnamed individuals as part of its long-running legal efforts against P2P users. These "John Doe" suits include the individual's IP address, which the RIAA uses to discover his or her identity.

In a statement, RIAA president Cary Sherman hailed the lawsuits as protecting the integrity of the market so legal music services like iTunes can prosper. Sherman also coined a new phrase for those who download music illegally, likening them to retail shoplifters with the term "songlifter."

"Just as we continue to educate fans about the right ways to enjoy music online, we will continue to enforce our rights through the legal system. Songlifting is not without consequences," he said.

An employee of law firm Jones Day found legal memos showing that their client, Diebold Election Systems, had used uncertified voting systems in Alameda County elections beginning in 2002 - violating California election law. The whistle-blower turned over the memos to the Oakland Tribune, which published the legal memos on its website in April 2004. The company's AccuVote-TSx model was subsequently banned in May 2004. Now, the whistle-blower, Stephen Heller, has been charged in L.A. Superior Court with felony access to computer data, commercial burglary, and receiving stolen property. If convicted on all three counts, Heller could face up to three years and eight months in state prison. Blair Berk, Heller's attorney state, "Certainly, someone who saw those documents could have reasonably believed that thousands of voters were going to be potentially disenfranchised in upcoming elections." Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the L.A. County district attorney's office rebuts, "He's accused of breaking the law... If we feel that the evidence shows beyond a reasonable doubt in our minds that a crime has been committed, it's our job as a criminal prosecutor to file a case."

A police unit dedicated to combating movie piracy and those responsible for the manufacture and distribution of pirated films has launched in London.

In partnership with the Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact), the new unit will pursue individuals and groups profiting from the sale of fake DVDs.

The unit, which will initially operate for a one-year period, will work alongside Fact collating intelligence on crime trends and activities in film piracy.

In a new series of lawsuits, Hollywood studios for the first time are targeting companies that provide access to Usenet newsgroups.

This corner of the Internet, largely a leftover from the days before the Web exploded into the mainstream, rarely gets much attention. It's still primarily a forum for text discussions (and overwhelming amounts of spam), where techies help one another with Windows and driver problems, and animal lovers share cat stories.

But in the last few years, a handful of technologies have emerged that have made newsgroups a much more fertile place for downloading copies of movies, music and software.

The MPAA says all the sites they've sued are facilitating piracy. But the legal status of search engines has never quite been clarified, and indeed, Google itself is the largest newsgroup search tool in existence.

Who could be upset by a scheme that allows free use of software? Well, Gervase Markham has found one Trading Standards officer who is.

A little while ago, I received an e-mail from a lady in the Trading Standards department of a large northern town. They had encountered businesses which were selling copies of Firefox, and wanted to confirm that this was in violation of our licence agreements before taking action against them.

I wrote back, politely explaining the principles of copyleft – that the software was free, both as in speech and as in price, and that people copying and redistributing it was a feature, not a bug. I said that selling verbatim copies of Firefox on physical media was absolutely fine with us, and we would like her to return any confiscated CDs and allow us to continue with our plan for world domination (or words to that effect).

"I can't believe that your company would allow people to make money from something that you allow people to have free access to. Is this really the case?" she asked.

"If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation, as it is difficult for us to give general advice to businesses over what is/is not permitted."

She then asked me to identify myself, so that she could confirm that I was authorised to speak for the Mozilla Foundation on this matter. I wondered if she was imagining nefarious copyright-infringing street traders taking a few moments off from shouting about the price of bananas to pop into an internet cafe, crack a router and intercept her e-mail.