A federal judge ordered tobacco companies Thursday to admit they lied about the harmful effects of smoking cigarettes and to warn consumers in advertisements and packaging that tobacco is addictive. US District Judge Gladys Kessler ruled that the industry conspired for decades to deceive the public about the dangers of smoking and now must pay to help smokers kick the habit
The Australian Greens leader Bob Brown has rejected claims he has not tried to contact members of the Exclusive Brethren religious group
Air travellers leaving the United Kingdom on Thursday faced the strictest security measures in years: iPods, mobile phones, laptops, and even books and magazines were no longer permitted as carry-on items
Detective Senior Constable Mark Thomas, an officer involved in the prosecution of 13 accused terrorists, has told a court he gleaned much of his knowledge of terrorism from the internet and admits he’s no expert on the subject
The Indian high court has ordered Coke and Pepsi to produce the formulas for their soft-drinks, on the back of a report that says that Pepsi contains 30 times the amount of pesticide reported in 2003, while Coke’s level has gone up 25-fold — via Boing Boing
Chancellor Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister in waiting, has bought the idea that all electronic transactions in the UK should be linked to a central government/police database. Every cash withdrawal, every credit card purchase, ever loyalty card use… And that data should flow back from the police database to the loyalty card provider. So, for example, not only would the government know what books you were buying, but the bookstore would also know if you had an outstanding speeding ticket
Call centre and technology jobs have been the main target of offshoring to low-cost operations in places such as India and the Philippines, but journalism is in the sights of one of India’s largest offshorers
A Melbourne shopping centre and tourist attraction have banned photographs, in order to prevent terrorism. Because all terrorism begins with the devilish capture of precious photons. Once these photons have been taken away to the terrorists’ spider caves, they are converted into terrorist photons and re-released at the speed of light to attack their targets with relatavistic savageness — via Boing Boing
The House of Representatives voted on restricting access to social sites on public terminals. The bill, which passed the House in a 410-15 vote, would bar users from accessing sites like Amazon, MySpace, or Slashdot from terminals in libraries and schools. Adults would be able to ask permission
to access such sites — via Slashdot
For years, the RIAA has claimed that having the IP address of a computer that has shared unauthorised files is the equivalent of having the evidence of who was actually sharing files. That, of course, is false. The IP address simply can help you know who paid for the internet access, but not who was using what computer on a network
File-sharing service Kazaa, a longtime thorn in the side of the recording industry, has buried the hatchet with major record companies in a $100 million out-of-court settlement
Shawn Hogan, CEO of Digital Point Solutions, has found himself on the receiving end of an MPAA lawsuit claiming he downloaded a copy of Meet the Fockers
on Bittorrent. Mr Hogan both denies the charges as well as claims he already owns the movie on DVD. After being asked to pay a $2500 extortion fee, Mr Hogan lawyered up and has vowed to challenge and help change the MPAA’s tactics. They’re completely abusing the system,
Hogan says. Although expecting to pay well over $100,000 to defend himself, he claims I would spend well into the millions on this
via Slashdot
The Federal Emergency Management Agency prohibits journalists from having unsupervised interviews with Hurricane Katrina victims who have been relocated to FEMA trailer parks, according to a report in the Baton Rouge Advocate
Microsoft has filed 26 lawsuits against alleged dealers of pirated software in seven US states. Microsoft claims the companies sold pirated software or computers loaded with pirated software
On the directions of the government of India, Indian ISPs have started censoring and blocking web properties. This was first noticed by Indian bloggers and upon inquiring with their respective ISPs, the actions are confirmed. Unfortunately, Blogspot and TypePad are the targets until now — via Slashdot
The Australian government has announced it wants cross media ownership laws and restrictions on foreign ownership removed by 2007
The British music industry has stepped up its campaign against illegal file-sharing, demanding that two ISPs suspend 59 accounts it believes are being used to swap copyrighted songs
Vodaphone has quietly disabled the DRM on the mobile episodes of 24 it sells; now those videos can be copied to iPods and PCs — via Boing Boing
Citing irreparable injury to the creative artistic expression in the copyrighted movies
, an appeals judge has ruled that producing, selling or renting edited versions of motion pictures violates US copyright law — via Boing Boing
Tony Blair’s flagship identity cards scheme is set to fail and may not be introduced for a generation, according to leaked Whitehall e-mails from the senior officials responsible for the multi-billion-pound project — via Charlie’s Diary
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