An anonymous reader writes “The release last week of the US copyright blacklist is beginning to generate a backlash in countries around the world. Reports from Canada, Europe, and Asia all note that the US claims are very suspect and that the report is little more than an attempt to bully dozens of countries into following the US DMCA model.”
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axjms writes “New York Magazine has a confessional/abdication from the man who wrote the software that turns mortgage into bonds and those nasty little things called CMOs. An interesting first-person account from a coder whose work reached far beyond what he or anyone could have anticipated.”
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James McP writes “According to an article on Archaeology, fake artifacts being sold on eBay have caused the bottom to drop out of the low-end artifact market. This outcome is exactly opposite to what archeologists feared would happen when eBay came on the scene. A side effect of more and more forgers getting in on the act has been a dramatic increase in high-quality fakes that can fool experts and illicit collectors alike, lowering the price for high-end artifacts as well. It’s a lot less cost-effective to go tomb raiding than to make your own fakes, especially since selling fake artifacts isn’t really illegal.”
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Mike writes “Law prof Eugene Volokh blogs about a US House of Representatives bill proposed by Rep. Linda T. Sanchez and 14 others that could make it a federal felony to use your blog, social media like MySpace and Facebook, or any other Web media ‘to cause substantial emotional distress through “severe, repeated, and hostile” speech.’ Rep. Sanchez and colleagues want to make it easier to prosecute any objectionable speech through a breathtakingly broad bill that would criminalize a wide range of speech protected by the First Amendment. The bill is called The Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act, and if passed into law (and if it survives constitutional challenge) it looks almost certain to be misused.”
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An anonymous reader writes “One day before Amazon is scheduled to unveil its widescreen Kindle aimed at newspaper readers, the e-commerce giant has been awarded its first US patent for an e-book reader. The new patent, D591,741, is a design patent which protects the look and feel of the Kindle shell, not for fundamental technologies. Those patents are mostly held by E Ink Corp., which makes the ‘liquidless paper’ display. Sony, IBM, and the Discovery cable TV network also have e-book patents. Amazon, though the leading e-book seller, has none, but the patent award indicates they’ve applied for at least four recently.” Also in Kindle news, PC World has a brief article up on the larger-screen Kindle DX (expected to launch Wednesday), including pictures first spotted on Engadget.
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 Telegraph.co.uk |
EU Parliament votes to ban seal products
Calgary Herald The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to ban seal product imports, ending a long battle to shut off a key market for Canada's sealing industry. Canada pledges WTO challenge of EU seal import ban Reuters Canada Canada, EU trade talks unaffected by seal ban Canada.com CBC.ca – National Post – AOL Canada – CTV Montreal all 430 news articles |
 Voice of America |
On Washington Pakistan Overshadows Afghanistan on US Agenda
New York Times – David E. Sanger By DAVID E. SANGER WASHINGTON – When President Obama announced his new strategy in March for dealing with the problems of Afghanistan and Pakistan, he declared that America's once-grandiose goals in the region should be narrowed to taking aim at Al … Video: Securing Pakistan's Nukes CBS The Taliban Tightens Hold In Pakistan's Swat Region Washington Post guardian.co.uk – The Associated Press – Xinhua – Voice of America all 3,363 news articles |
 CTV.ca |
British parliamentarians told not to be misled by anti-gov't …
Xinhua COLOMBO, May 5 (Xinhua) — Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse told a visiting group of British parliamentarians not tobe misled by pro-Tamil Tiger rebel propaganda. Last rebel stronghold sustains heavy damage: Sri Lanka army CBC.ca New Democrats launch petition to stop violence in Sri Lanka Alberta Talks Hindustan Times – BBC News – NEWS.com.au – Exchange Morning Post all 859 news articles |
Should Comcast be worrying? More than 40% of U.S. households under age 35 watch Internet video on their TVs at least once a month.
The wait is over folks, Microsoft has published the download page for the Windows 7 RC. As we noted earlier, the download was scheduled to launch tomorrow and was to be available worldwide. Coming straight from the download page, here are Microsoft’s notes for the release candidate
