Cody Taylor

RobGoldsmith writes in with news of the further adventures of Charles Simonyi, whose first trip to the ISS we discussed a couple of years ago. The Russian Soyuz vehicle carrying Simonyi and two others docked a day after the US space shuttle Discovery landed in Florida. “Space Adventures, Ltd. … announced today that its orbital client Charles Simonyi and his crew successfully arrived at the International Space Station after launching on-board the Soyuz TMA-14 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 26. The spacecraft docked to the ISS at 9:05 am (EDT) with Dr. Simonyi and Expedition 19 crew members Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka and NASA astronaut Michael Barratt. They were greeted at approximately 12:30 p.m. (EDT) by the Expedition 18 crew…”

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who will be the innovator that leads the way in monetizing social media?

mmmscience writes “Researchers in Switzerland think they had identified the regions of the brain responsible for creating phantom limbs and the senses that go along with them. Scientists studied a stroke victim who claimed that the phantom limb of her now-paralyzed left arm could do a number of things a normal limb could do, including ‘scratch an itch on her head, with an actual sense of relief.'”

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TechCrunch is running a story about three possible security issues with Google Docs recently uncovered by researcher Ade Barkah. It turns out that an image embedded into a protected document is given a URL which is not protected, allowing anyone who knows or guesses it to see the image regardless of permissions or even the existence of the document. Barkah also pointed out that once you’ve shared a document with another person, that person can see diagram revisions from any point before they gained access, forcing you to create a new document if you need to redact something. The last issue, the mechanics of which he disclosed only to Google, affects the document-sharing invitation forwarding system, which can allow somebody access to your documents after you’ve removed their permissions. Google made a blog post to respond to these concerns, saying that they “do not pose a significant security risk,” but are being investigated. We previously discussed a sharing bug in Google Docs that was fixed earlier this month.

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ryanleary writes “I am currently a junior computer science major at a relatively competitive university. I intend to remain here for some graduate work, and I would like to get a master’s degree. What would be a good field to study? An MS in computer science appears to be highly theoretical, while an MS in IT seems more practical due to its breadth (covering some management, HCI, and design). What looks best on a resume, and where might I expect to make more money in the not-too-distant future? Computer Science, Information Technology, or something different altogether — perhaps an MBA?”

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In a bid to conquer the web bit-by-bit, The Pirate Bay has launched a new feature to allow it to penetrate the social networking site Facebook. With only a single click Facebook users can add their favorite torrents to their profile to share them with friends. The IFPI is not pleased with the new feature, while FaceBook declined to comment.

Canadian researchers have uncovered a vast electronic spying operation that infiltrated computers and stole documents from government and private offices around the world, including those of the Dalai Lama, The New York Times …

uctpjac writes “London media lawyer Emily MacManus argues that UK libel law has three features which make it the ‘defamation tourism’ capital of the world and a serious threat to web free speech. First, there is no free speech presumption in the UK as there is, for example, in the US. Second, every access of a web page is considered to be a separate act of publication in the UK (unlike the US, where ‘original publication’ holds). Third, ‘no-win-no-fee’ libel litigation is now allowed in the UK. If any blog, anywhere, publishes something you’d like taken down, threaten libel action in the UK: no one except the super-rich can afford to even take these cases to court, so media lawyers advise publishers to ‘take it down, take it down quickly, take it down again.’ There’s not much chance that the judges will move the law any time soon because they just aren’t seeing the cases that could cause them to set new precedent.”

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On Wednesday, we discussed news that AT&T had begun sending takedown notices to users whom the RIAA has accused of illegally downloading copyrighted works. Cox and Comcast are both cooperating with the RIAA in that regard as well. However, while Cox seems willing to shut off service in the case of repeat offenders, Comcast denied that it was considering a similar penalty, and AT&T said they’ll flat out refuse to terminate service on the RIAA’s word alone; it will take a court order. They seem satisfied with the effect letters have had on inhibiting such downloads: “‘It’s a standard part of everybody’s terms of service,’ [AT&T senior executive vice president Jim Cicconi] said. ‘If somebody is engaging in illegal activity, it basically gives us the right to do it…We’re not a finder of fact and under no circumstances would we ever suspend or terminate service based on an allegation from a third party. We’re just simply reminding people that they can’t engage in illegal activity.’ Cicconi said the company began testing this kind of ‘forward noticing’ late last year and even experimented with sending certified letters. Cicconi said the notices worked. The company saw very few repeat offenders.”

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Deepa Sivarajan sends word that the journal Transformative Works and Culture has published an issue that focuses on games, containing a variety of articles which examine how games interact with modern culture. One essay takes a look at how developers gain an understanding of the systems and structures that drive gameplay, and another discusses motivation and “participatory culture” in games that have a substantial degree of user design involvement, such as mods and addons. There’s also an evaluation of how the enthusiast press affects the perceived value of games. The issue includes game-related book reviews and interviews, which can be found at the bottom of the full list of articles.

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