It turns out that to use UnBox, the user has to download software from Amazon that contains a Windows service (ADVWindowsClientService.exe). Tom Merritt over at C|Net reports that the service tries to connect to the internet quite frequently. Even tweaking msconfig could not prevent it. So, in summary, to be allowed the privilege of purchasing a video that I can’t burn to DVD and can’t watch on my iPod, I have to allow a program to hijack my start-up and force me to login to uninstall it? No way. Sorry, Amazon. I love a lot of what you do, but I will absolutely not recommend this service. Try again
— via Slashdot
An incredibly diverse coalition of high-powered public interest groups, industry associations, and corporations have signed an open letter to the US Patent and Trademark Office rejecting the Broadcast Treaty, a US-led UN initiative that could do untold harm to artists, tech and telecoms companies, scholars, and people with disabilities
Geoplasma is planning to build a power plant in St Lucie County, Florida that will generate electricity by vaporising landfill trash and sewage treatment plant sludge with plasma arcs. It will be the first plant of its kind in the USA and the largest in the world. The power plant is expected to destroy 3000 tons of garbage, generating about 120 megawatts of electricity per day. The plant will also supply steam to a nearby Tropicana juice plant. The landfill is expected to be depleted in about 18 years. In addition, up to 600 tons of melted, hardened sludge will be produced each day and will be sold for road construction
Samsung’s US Web site is hosting a Trojan horse that logs keystrokes, disables antivirus applications and steals online banking access codes, according to Internet security firm Websense
New Zealand’s lead state sector agency yesterday responded to criticism of its new digital rights management guidelines, saying the policy does not alter its support for open source software in government agencies
A humiliated Tony Blair was forced to announce yesterday that he will stand down as Prime Minister within a year as he launched a desperate attempt to cling to power
France issued an implicit criticism of US foreign policy on Thursday, rejecting talk of a war on terror
Xerox has lifted the veil from some of its research and development work in the field of printing. They demoed the very intriguing transient documents. These offer the prospect of reusable paper in the sense that the content is automatically erased after a period of time, ready for fresh printing. Inspired by the fact that many print outs have a life-span of a few hours (think of the emails you may print out just to read, or the content you proof read on the train journey back home), the specially prepared paper will preserve its content for up to 16 hours
Australian motor sport legend Peter Brock has died after his car hit a tree during a rally in Western Australia
The NSW Police Force has invested in a biometric tracking system that is capable of combining information from numerous video cameras to monitor people, vehicles and even packages or briefcases
Amazon.com has launched it’s Amazon Unbox video store. Looks like about 1300 movies and 350 tv series, at US$9.99 and up for movies and US$1.99 per TV episode. Downloads come with a DVD quality version and a version more appropriate for portable players (using Windows DRM). Also, videos can be re-downloaded from your Amazon media library — via Slashdot
Google has launched a free news archive service enabling internet users to search for printed articles dating back to the 1700s
In an effort to track down the source of information leaks by Hewlett-Packard insiders, private investigators working for the company obtained reporters’ telephone records without permission. The reporters’ records were accessed as part of a private investigation into news leaks that was initiated by company Chairwoman Patricia Dunn
Sony will delay the launch of its PlayStation 3 Australia and Europe giving rivals Microsoft and Nintendo a free run at the Christmas shopping season
FreeDOS 1.0 has been released only a little bit later than planned. The 1.0 milestone is considered to be a stable and viable MS-DOS replacement
and features long filename support, HIMEM and EMM386 management, and CD-ROM support
Apple may soon launch a service that allows users to download feature-length films, boosting its presence in the digital home
Bush said that 14 of the most notorious terrorism suspects had been transferred to the Guant?°namo Bay detention center to face eventual trial
Matsushita Electric Industrial said Tuesday it has begun recalling 6,000 lithium-ion batteries used in Panasonic-brand notebook computers on concerns they might overheat
Google is asking surfers with time on their hands to help it categorise and label the images indexed by its search engine, building a database of knowledge about the contents of the images
Google, which refused in the past year to hand over user search data to US authorities fighting children’s access to pornography, said yesterday that it was complying with a Brazilian court’s orders to turn over data that could help identify users accused of taking part in online communities that encourage racism, pedophilia and homophobia. The difference, it says, is scale and purpose. The Justice Department wanted Google’s entire search index, billions of pages and two months’ worth of queries, for a broad civil case. Brazil, by contrast, is looking for information in specific cases involving Google’s social networking site, Orkut
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