Cody Taylor

Yahoo says its slump worsened in the first quarter as the recession made it more difficult to sell the ads that generate most of its profits…

What made the Swedish court in the Pirate Bay copyright infringement case go for guilty? CNET News looks more closely at the verdict to find out.

Al Benedetto writes “I stumbled across this article which analyzes the YouTube audio content identification system in-depth. Apparently, since YouTube’s system has no transparency, the behaviors had to be determined based on dozens of trial-and-error video uploads. The author tries things like speed/pitch adjustment, the addition of background noise, as well as other audio tweaks to determine exactly what you’d need to adjust before the fingerprinter started mis-identifying material. From the article: ‘When I muted the beginning of the song up until 0:30 (leaving the rest to play) the fingerprinter missed it. When I kept the beginning up until 0:30 and muted everything from 0:30 to the end, the fingerprinter caught it. That indicates that the content database only knows about something in the first 30 seconds of the song. As long as you cut that part off, you can theoretically use the remainder of the song without being detected. I don’t know if all samples in the content database suffer from similar weaknesses, but it’s something that merits further research.'”

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Parz writes with word that new information is emerging about the much-anticipated BioShock 2. Eurogamer has a detailed write-up about the game, saying that it raises curiosity and exhibits plot-depth in a manner similar to the first game. Gamespot has a video interview with some of the developers, in which they talk about some of the new environments and how they’re able to do more with the story in a sequel by not having to explain the fundamental characteristics of the setting. In an interview with Gameplayer, Lead Level Architect Hogarth de la Plante said, “You’ll see locations in BioShock 2 that are completely flooded interior structures that you can walk through out in the ocean.” A gameplay trailer was recently released, and screenshots are available as well.

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Combat Wombat brings news that the legal battle between the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organisation (CSIRO) and a host of major tech corporations has come to end, with a large settlement going to the CSIRO. The fight was over a patent on wireless LAN technology, which already earned the CSIRO a victory in court over Buffalo Technology and a settlement with Hewlett-Packard. The remaining 13 companies, which include Dell, Intel, Microsoft and Nintendo, have now chosen to settle as well. “[The CSIRO] will use the money won from a Wi-Fi technology patent battle to fund further research. … It is unclear how much money has flowed to the CSIRO, but experts say the technology would be worth billions of dollars if royalties were paid on an ongoing basis.”

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Snowblindeye writes with this excerpt from the European Southern Observatory: “Well-known exoplanet researcher Michel Mayor today announced the discovery of the lightest exoplanet found so far. The planet, ‘e,’ in the famous system Gliese 581, is only about twice the mass of Earth. The team also refined the orbit of the planet Gliese 581 d, first discovered in 2007, placing it well within the habitable zone, where liquid water oceans could exist. Planet Gliese 581 e orbits its host star — located only 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra (‘the Scales’) — in just 3.15 days. ‘With only 1.9 Earth-masses, it is the least massive exoplanet ever detected and is, very likely, a rocky planet,’ says co-author Xavier Bonfils from Grenoble Observatory. Being so close to its host star, the planet is not in the habitable zone. But another planet in this system appears to be. … The planet furthest out, Gliese 581 d, orbits its host star in 66.8 days. ‘Gliese 581 d is probably too massive to be made only of rocky material, but we can speculate that it is an icy planet that has migrated closer to the star,’ says team member Stephane Udry. The new observations have revealed that this planet is in the habitable zone, where liquid water could exist. ‘”d” could even be covered by a large and deep ocean — it is the first serious “water world” candidate,’ continued Udry.”

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jabjoe writes “Groklaw is highlighting a new document from the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (PDF) about the history of Microsoft’s anti-competitive behavior. Quoting: ‘ECIS has written it in support of the EU Commission’s recent preliminary findings, on January 15, 2009, that Microsoft violated antitrust law by tying IE to Windows. It is, to the best of my knowledge, the first time that the issue of Microsoft’s patent threats against Linux have been framed in a context of anti-competitive conduct.’ The report itself contains interesting quotes, like this one from Microsoft’s Thomas Reardon: ‘[W]e should just quietly grow j++ share and assume that people will take more advantage of our classes without ever realizing they are building win32-only java apps.’ It also has the Gates 1998 Deposition.”

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