March 18th 2009
The UK government wants to remove users’ rights to internet access, including applications and services, for people within the EU. This move comes in the form of amendments to the Telecoms Package being distributed at the EU seat of power in Brussels. The amendment replaces “user’s rights” with the “principle” that users can be told not […]
March 17th 2009
Video distribution sites such as YouTube, Metacafe, and DailyMotion host video files that can infringe the rights of content owners and brand holders. Until now, if you’ve needed to protect video assets, its been tough because video files are easily reformatted, edited, and distributed with changed metatags. Now, a tier of start-ups are competing both to […]
March 16th 2009
The Disney images of the Seven Dwarves are now being associated with the symptoms of menopause. The ghost of Walt Disney can’t be psyched about this.
March 13th 2009
The Associated Press struck back as it countersued Shepard Fairey this week. The AP claims Fairey’s usage of an AP photo was uncredited and uncompensated, and violates copyright law. They added that it’s also a threat to journalism. The AP is seeking profits and damages. Apparently, Fairey used several companies to market the derivative work, […]
March 12th 2009
“The truth is an absolute defense to a claim of defamation.” But perhaps not always in Massachusetts, and that’s a problem. Judge Juan Torruella of the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has allowed Alan Noonan, a sales director fired by Staples, to pursue his libel claim against the company. Staples’s executive vice […]
March 11th 2009
Msgr. Carlo Maria Polvani, a Vatican diplomat, has issued a warning to the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the non-profit entity responsible for the Internet’s naming system, as they considering allowing virtually any word to be used as a top-level domain. Establishing religiously themed Internet domain names would lead […]
March 10th 2009
“It’s your right to arrange Chen Xiao’s life, and it’s my obligation to serve you…”. Chen Xiao has had a tough year. Blizzards covered her home town in China, her area was devastated by an earthquake. Her best friends divorced and her clothing store failed. What’s an entrepreneur to do? Rent your life to the […]
March 9th 2009
Wikileaks discovered that NATO’s communications briefs were all encrypted with the same easy-to-guess password: “progress.” Even military-strength encryption is useless if the password can be guessed by anyone reading a campaign poster. One document, “NATO in Afghanistan: Master Narrative,” is a 30-page guide to the “story” NATO representatives are to tell, and what details should […]
March 8th 2009
Last week, the Telegraph reported that French fighter planes were grounded because they were unable to download mission data from ships infected with the Conficker virus. The same article notes that most of the British fleet was also infected. Microsoft has offered a bounty of $250,000 for the arrest of what appears to be an […]
March 7th 2009
Documentary filmmaker Rob Spence is planning to outfit his prosthetic eye with a tiny wireless camera. His “EyeBorg Project” is intended to raise awareness of surveillance society in general, and of Toronto specifically, which is infested by 12,000 such cameras. According to his press release: In order for the project to be successful the smallest, […]
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