Home / arstechnica.com rss archive / August-30-2007


RIAA denies copyright misuse in the wake of antitrust, monopoly accusations
The RIAA is fighting allegations that its identical tactics in over 25,000 file-sharing lawsuits demonstrate that it is an anticompetitive cartel, and therefore guilty of copyright misuse.Read More...

Security researcher stumbles across embassy e-mail log-ins
Some diplomats aren't too careful with their login credentials. A Swedish security consultant has stumbled across a security information for users at the Russian, Iranian, Indian, and other embassies.Read More...

States challenge efficacy, expiration of Microsoft antitrust remedies
Some constraints imposed on Microsoft by a 2001 settlement with the DoJ will expire soon, but several states are requesting an extension period of monitoring, fearing that Microsoft is months away from resuming its old habits. Read More...

Viacom's "bass ackwards" screw-up: issues takedown for video it "pirated"
What happens when Viacom infringes on someone else's copyright, and then that clip gets posted to YouTube? Viacom accuses that user of copyright infringement, of course.Read More...

Microsoft and Eolas settle, ending patent battle over plug-ins, ActiveX
After years of litigation, Microsoft and Eolas have settled out of court over a patent on interactive web applications that was used to target Microsoft's ActiveX technology.Read More...

Microsoft settles with Eolas, ends long-running patent battle
After years of litigation, Microsoft and Eolas have settled out of court over a patent on interactive web applications that was used to target Microsoft's ActiveX technology.Read More...

Zango tries, fails to sue its way out from under the "spyware" label
A federal judge has just ruled that security vendors are allowed to treat any program they want as spyware. Score one for the Sare Harbor and the Communications Decency Act.Read More...

YouTube inks deal with UK music publisher group
YouTube has made an agreement with the UK-based MCPS-PRS Alliance, a group that pays royalties to publishers, songwriters, and composers. YouTube will pay a flat fee in order to use its members' work on the site, while another US-based publishing group waits for a similar deal.Read More...

AMD announces 128-bit (GPU-oriented?) SSE5 extensions to x86
AMD wants x86's vector capabilities to catch up to AltiVec (almost), so they're proposing a major new set of vector extensions that they call SSE5. Will this be a repeat of x86-64, or of 3DNow!?Read More...

Google, public policy groups want to make "open access" a reality at 2.1GHz
M2Z Networks is finding support for its "give us free spectrum" idea hard to come by, but Google and a coalition of consumer groups believe that the 2.1GHz band has great potential to be an "open access" spectrum block.Read More...

Sony euthanizes Sony Connect
If a music store closes on the Internet and nobody hears it, does it make a sound? Sony has decided that it wasn't cut out for the online music business after all.Read More...

Video gaming to be twice as big as music by 2011
Ubisoft's CEO believes that gaming will grow by 50 percent over the next four years. We look at past sales figures and future projections to see if trends bear out his optimistic assessment. (Hint: things are looking good for gamers.)Read More...

Intel confirms details of Tolapai, a SoC embedded processor
Details of Intel's first big x86 embedded processor have been unveiled at Hot Chips, and the new design looks poised to put x86-based computers on a serious form factor diet. Get ready for the next wave of tiny Windows, OS X, and Linux hardware.Read More...