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arstechnica.com rss archive / October-07-2007
Lack of media diversity ownership slammed on the eve of more consolidation
A media watchdog says that ownership of US media resources is overwhelmingly homogenous, and it objects to further consolidation which it sees as only exacerbating the problem. Read More...
Google attacks Verizon's attempt to water down 700MHz "open access" rules
The fight over 700MHz "open access" goes public as the gloves come off and Google attacks Verizon over the company's attempts to limit the proposed "open access" rules.Read More...
UC Berkeley puts hundreds of academic lectures on YouTube
Ever felt like learning about physics from a professor at UC Berkeley? You may have been able to listen to those lectures before, but now you can watch them through the university's new public channel on YouTube. Read More...
House Committee begins NSA wiretap investigation, taps EFF and ACLU for aid
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce has started its investigation into the involvement of the telecommunications companies in the NSA wiretap program.Read More...
AT&T U-Verse sidesteps town politics, coming to Illinois in 2008
Under a new statewide franchise law, AT&T can offer video service in Illinois without having to negotiate with every town and village. Such a law could be coming soon to a state near you; 18 states already have them on the books.Read More...
Amazon reveals its distributed storage "Dynamo"
Amazon researchers are set to present a formal paper describing Dynamo, its distributed storage system at an Operating Systems Principles conference this month. We'll take a quick look at the impressive technology behind Dynamo.Read More...
RIAA trial verdict is in: jury finds Thomas liable for infringement
After less than four hours of deliberations, a federal jury in Duluth, Minnesota, handed the RIAA a victory in the first file-sharing case to go to trial, finding that Jammie Thomas willfully infringed on the record labels' copyrights, awarding them $222,000 in damages.Read More...
Seeking market share, Microsoft removes WGA anti-piracy check from IE7
Microsoft has announced that its latest update to Internet Explorer 7 removes the built-in Windows Genuine Advantage check when installing the browser.Read More...
419ers busted, $2.1 billion in fraudulent checks snatched
77 people have been arrested in connection with running fake check scams like the infamous "Nigerian scam," which led authorities to seize billions of dollars in fraudulent checks.Read More...
China's Great Firewall turns its attention to RSS feeds
The "Great Firewall of China" is an organic, constantly-changing "filter" that blocks and unblocks access to certain resources seemingly as often as the tides change. One recent blocking effort targets RSS, and reports indicate the problem is getting worse. There are ways around it, fortunately.Read More...
NBCU's CEO: Piracy is the new face of economic crime, and we're losing
The big boss at NBCU knows that the war on piracy is a disaster, but his solution isn't to try a new tactic. Rather, Jeff Zucker wants to see all ISPs and the government put piracy at the top of their agendas.Read More...
"White spaces" war heats up at FCC
In FCC meetings, broadcasters call white spaces devices "germs" that could "infect" TVs in hospital and hotel rooms. Microsoft asks everyone to just slow down the FUD train and says that the devices are 100 percent accurate.Read More...
North Korea Dear Leader Kim Jong Il: "I'm an Internet expert too"
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il wants everyone to know that he is no n00b. He's an Internet expert too, even if his people aren't.Read More...
IBM drops patent app on "outsourcing software"
IBM has made a controversial patent on outsourcing techniques public domain after critics claimed that it didn't meet IBM's own standards for high-quality patents. The company agreed.Read More...
DHS flunks e-mail administration 101, causes mini-DDoS
Subscribers to an intelligence report e-mail list run by the Department of Homeland Security were hit with millions of e-mails after the DHS set the reply-to address to copy all list members.Read More...
Ig Nobels go to sword swallowing, gay bomb
It's that time of year again. The Ig Nobel awards ceremony, with a keynote speech entitled "Chicken Chicken Chicken Chicken Chicken," happened last night. Winners include a catalog of lice and the US Air Force's gay bomb research.Read More...
Sony confirms 40GB PS3 for Europe, removes backwards compatibility
Sony announces new hardware in their PlayStation 3 line: a 40GB model with no memory card slots, only two USB ports, and no backwards compatibility of any kind. The new model launches in Europe on October 10. Read More...
EU puts on monocle, prepares to examine Google/DoubleClick merger
The EU has reportedly decided to move forward with a detailed inquiry into the proposed merger of Google and DoubleClick, which EU privacy watchdogs and consumer groups are opposing.Read More...
BT to UK customers: Share your WiFi... please!
BT wants its users to start sharing their broadband connections over WiFi. In return, users get access to WiFi hotspots around the world.Read More...
Microsoft wants your health care records, trust
Microsoft has opened up HealthVault, its service that it hopes will become a centralized place to store health records online, as a beta to the public. We took a brief walkthrough to see what it was about.Read More...