US courts have struck down the FCC’s broadcast flag requirement. In a stunning victory for hardware makers and television buffs, a federal appeals court has tossed out government rules that would have outlawed many digital TV receivers and tuner cards in the US from mid year. The EFF has details on the flag and the official ruling is online for examination
Apple’s Bonjour — also known as zero-configuration networking, enables automatic discovery of computers, devices, and services on IP networks — is now available for Windows. A Bonjour icon shows up in Internet Explorer to enable Bonjour browsing, along with the Bonjour Printer Wizard. The benefits would appear to be for Apple customers (more Bonjouring with more networks) and to gain Apple switchers by enticing Windows customers — via Slashdot
Australia is doing trial runs with a technology which could connect conventional phone numbers with web pages, internet fax services and other online resources. Subscribers to an ENUM service register their other contact details, then set up rules that control how and when calls to their phone are routed. For example, calls from anybody but close family could be routed straight to voicemail between 6.00pm and 11.00pm. Because it connects to any IP service, incoming callers could also use phone numbers to access web sites, the Skype VoIP application, faxes and other applications
Two animal welfare experts, Dr Temple Grandin of Colorado State University and Dr Ian Duncan of the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, said they resigned as advisors to fast-food chain KFC after the company asked them to sign an agreement preventing them from speaking publicly about its policies on such issues as animal slaughter
In Australia the unemployed have to fulfill a mutual obligation
requirement in order to receive welfare payments. What this means is that recipients of welfare payments have to be involved in some sort of activity that improves their chances of finding employment. Until now this has included various types of community service and training and education programs. Recently an organisation called CommunityCode has been established to allow recipients to fulfill this requirement by contributing to OSS projects — via Slashdot
Following the Federal Court decision that the Department of Immigration has breached its duty of care by failing to provide adequate psychiatric treatment for two Baxter detainees, Senator Kerry Nettle revealed another case where DIMIA spent $13,159 to prevent him from receiving proper psychiatric treatment
Jeff Ferguson, a teacher who encouraged students to drink milk until they vomited as a classroom experiment, has lost another attempt to win back his job. Superior Court Judge E. Lynn Johnson ruled Monday that the Johnston County school board had sufficient cause
to fire him — via Improbable Research
When an online exortionist comes calling, threatening a DDoS, do you pay or fight? For many, paying may seem like a sensible option when compared to going out of business. CSO Magazine has a riveting article about how an online gambling site and a DDoS specialist teamed up to take on such an extortionist. When everybody else was rolling over and paying, this company risked its very existence to fight back
Wink, a beautifully written free program for creating Flash-format animated tutorials has been chosen to receive a Noble Piece Prize, the prize that honours the craftsmanship of Alfred Noble, who worked at the Jacquard Loom factory in France. Previous winners of this prize include the Digital Bicycle web site
iiNet has registered key trademarks — iimovies, iimusic and iimedia — which reveal it is considering a push into movies and music delivered over the Internet
NSW will be the first Australian state to outlaw unauthorised spying of employees using technologies including video cameras, e-mail and tracking devices with the introduction of the Workplace Surveillance Bill 2005 to state parliament today. The new laws will make it a criminal offence to take part in any form of covert surveillance unless an employer can prove they had reasonable suspicion of wrong doing by an employee
Rex Cabo, an actor and director in adult movies since the early ’90s, died 28 April in a bizarre suicide. He jumped from the eleventh floor of the Cooper Arms high-rise on Ocean Boulevard in Long Beach, landing on a parked police car — via Warren Ellis
Tiger Direct are suing Apple over the use of ‘Tiger’.
Tiger Direct claim that Apple’s use of Tiger is “causing confusion, mistake and deception among the general purchasing public.” and ” has changed internet search results, directly impacting its ability to market product to its customers”.
Well instead of whinging maybe they should just sell Tiger.
Methinks Tiger Direct won’t win over Tiger.
My videogaming pals and I are looking for solid four-player console games for our next marathon gaming session. We have enough hardware to support four players on GCN, PS2, PSX, and XBOX, so the system isn’t an issue. Likewise, the subject matter is unimportant as long as the game is fun with four. So it can be a shooter or a minigame collection or a kart racer or whatever. So far we have picked up:
GameCube
- Super Monkey Ball
- Mario Party 5
- Super Smash Bros
XBox
- Halo 2
PS2
- Midway Arcade Treasures 1 & 2 (Gauntlet, Rampart etc)
- Red Faction 2
PSX
- Crash Team Racing
- Micro Maniacs
- Overboard
- Worms World Party
The things I’m considering at the moment are Twisted Metal Black, Mario Kart DD and Timesplitters 2. Any other suggestions?
Adelaide’s CityLan network is being relaunched. Sometime in the last two weeks they decided to open it up for free use to anyone in Adelaide’s CBD, pending full commercial launch
Aiming to prevent mass piracy of digital TV programs, especially over the Internet, the Federal Communications Commission has mandated a new copy-protection scheme called the broadcast flag
. The FCC’s ruling, which goes into effect this July, lets you make a backup copy of flagged shows, but no further copies
The lovely Feòrag has pointed me in the direction of Eccentric Genius, a talented Canadian who crafts unusual contrivances for home and office. Wonderful things like mini trebuchets and guillotines and the delicious Victoriana of the Hypnodisk:
In the 1800’s, the European scientific community caught up with the rest of the world and noticed hypnosis. Entrepreneurial medical supply houses were quick to offer an optimistically comprehensive array of
Scientifically Designed Aids to the Induction of Mesmerism, of which theHypnotic Spiralis perhaps the most enduring.
Popular with evil criminal masterminds, the whirling hypnodisk was an always effective means of dealing with uncooperative adventurers, or perky junior reporters. Now you can have the same amazing powers in the privacy of your own home or office! The rotating spiral irresistably entrances the viewer, quickly reducing them to mindlessly obedient slaves under YOUR hypnotic control.
Make the mailroom guy quack like a duck! Turn your boss into a lap dancer! Brainwash wealthy relatives!
TAKE OVER THE WORLD!
Or not.
You know you want one, so while you’re there, look deep into the Hypnodisk and get me one too
Interesting follow up on the story concerning the killing of an italian senior intelligence agent by US Forces during an hostage rescue mission (AKA the Sgregna Case). Yesterday the Italian public received this PDF file containing an extremely detailed US military report on the alleged accident. Many lines in the report were blacked out
as the author probably considered them unclassified, yet sensible information (like the name who the guy who shot the car). It turns out the author don’t know jack about PDF and here is the unblackened report [DOC Format] in all its details, most probably exposed by some computer savvy guy in italian media — via MetaFilter
Christie’s auction house has won the right to sell off a $20 million art collection by beating rival Sotheby’s in a children’s game. Japanese art collector Tashi Hashiyama was unable to decide which of the prestigious auction houses should handle his collection, which featured works by Picasso, Van Gogh and Cezanne. To settle it, he had them play scissors, paper, rock to decide
There is a new PC that’s powered via a network cable rather than through a wall socket. The computer only requires 12 watts, lower than the upper limit of 15.4 watts that power over ethernet (PoE) can supply. PoE could end up being a universal power supply system as the cables and connectors for it are the same all over the world. By contrast power sockets and plugs differ by country
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