Reuters - China’s blocking of Web sites has
embarrassed the International Olympic Committee, but a computer
security expert said on Thursday that visitors to Beijing also
needed to protect their data from prying eyes.
Arn / MacRumors:
Nullriver Introduces 3G/EDGE Tethering App for iPhone [Updatedx2] — Nullriver, Inc. has released NetShare onto the iTunes App Store this evening (via iPhone Alley). The $9.99 application promises to allow you to share your iPhone’s network connection with your computer.
Filed under: Ask Engadget, Digital Cameras, Displays, Misc. Gadgets
Frightening though it may be, the fall semester is just around the corner. You know what that means? You’ll actually have to get up at — wait for it — an appointed time. Carissa, being the proactive student she is, posed this question:
“Going to school in the fall, I’m looking for the ideal alarm clock to beat the late nights and what not and noticed a few digital photo frames / alarm clocks. I want a decent alarm clock that has battery backup and good resolution on the screen for viewing photos. An auxiliary audio jack would be a major plus. Which one do you guys recommend that falls under the 200 dollar mark? Thanks a million!”
Look at that — you all even received a thank you in advance! For those who’ve mastered the art of waking up on time and pretending to be a real live adult, which alarm clock / digiframe hybrid have you found to be supreme? Oh, and you know that question you’ve been hitting the snooze on? Yeah, send it on over to ask at engadget dawt com.
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Yahoo’s long-delayed annual meeting is finally at hand, after a six-month deal ordeal that has left the Internet portal more or less where it was early this year, before Microsoft’s unsolicited bid. (Minus some market share and a whole lot…
Back in April, we noted that some NY state politicians were trying to put in place a rather sneaky legal change that effectively would force Amazon to collect sales tax in New York, despite not having a physical presence there. The “trick” was to claim that if you had any affiliates in the state, you had a local presence. Affiliates, of course, can be nothing more than an advertiser. So, based on this change of law, effectively anyone who has an advertiser in NY is considered to have a local presence there and must collect sales tax. Both Amazon.com and Overstock have sued over this law, and Overstock has even gone so far as to cut off all NY affiliates in response (showing how the law probably hurts NYers a lot more than it helps them).
Saul Hansell, over at the NY Times, picked up on an odd fact, however. Just weeks after this passed, a separate bill was introduced to repeal it. Yet, that bill appeared to have no sponsor, but the state Senate actually voted and approved it. After some digging, Hansell got an explanation: saying that the original bill was part of a larger bill that was approved, but many felt that they wanted to address just this specific issue. Of course, it appears that the state senators’ interest is not matched by the corresponding state assembly (who would also need to pass such a bill). Over there, they’d just as soon leave the matter as is, and let the courts (and taxpayers) sort it out.
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Aidan Malley / AppleInsider:
Apple drops first build of Mac OS X 10.5.5 with warning — As expected, Apple on Thursday afternoon provided its vast developer community with the first pre-release build of Mac OS X 10.5.5, but warned developers not to use this initial version of the software with Macs that contain integrated graphics chips.
Reuters - Video game publisher Activision
Blizzard Inc said quarterly profit at its Activision
unit more than doubled on sales of “Kung Fu Panda” and “Guitar
Hero: On Tour,” and it raised its 2009 forecast for the newly
merged company.
Mattathias Schwartz / New York Times:
Malwebolence — One afternoon in the spring of 2006, for reasons unknown to those who knew him, Mitchell Henderson, a seventh grader from Rochester, Minn., took a .22-caliber rifle down from a shelf in his parents’ bedroom closet and shot himself in the head.
Filed under: Cellphones
We’re not sure how this one got past Apple’s App Store censors, but the clever kids at Nullriver have released what appears to be the first tethering solution for the iPhone. The $10 NetShare app is just a SOCKS proxy that links an ad-hoc WiFi network to the iPhone’s 3G or EDGE connection — and if we could get it to work, we’d probably think it was a fine, if hacky, solution to a major limitation of Steve’s baby. As it stands, though, the instructions are pretty sparse, and while we can get the app to recognize a connection, we’re not able to actually load anything. We’re not sure how long this one’s going to last — anyone else willing to give it a shot before it gets yanked?
[Thanks, Zoli; Warning, link opens iTunes]
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Solar power has a lot of promise, but until recently there hasn’t been an adequate way to store the energy the sun produces. Scientists at MIT have come up with a new fuel cell process that mimics…
Jon Oltsik fears many companies with a big Web presence don’t realize the DNS flaw is their problem, and says if that’s true, we all have a problem.
There. I said it. I hate it. OK, I don’t really hate it. But sometimes I want to smash it against the wall. The last time was in the pit at the Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s concert in…
LG’s Netflix-streaming, Blu-ray 2.0 playing BD300 made its public debut tonight, and we’re impressed. The box is slim and it won’t take up more space on your shelf than any other player. An LG exec…
No matter how good the music is, musicians look kinda lame tapping out little beats on tiny samplers on stage. What is emphatically not lame though is pounding them on 16 giant pressure-sensitive…
Ray Beckerman, as you may already know, is a lawyer in New York who not only has defended numerous people against RIAA lawsuits, but also runs the Recording Industry vs. The People blog, where he chronicles what’s going on in these cases. While I believe he sometimes pushes the envelope too far in his claims about what the RIAA is doing, there’s no denying that he’s been a tremendous force in shining some much needed light on some of the RIAA’s more questionable activities, while also helping those who are severely outgunned in various lawsuits.
As numerous folks have sent in, Beckerman has now also written up something of a primer for judges in The Judge’s Journal, a publication of the American Bar Association targeted at judges. It basically explains the many problems with the way the RIAA conducts its lawsuits, noting how it often uses questionable means, weak evidence and general bullying tactics in filing its cases. It also relies on the fact that it comes off as more credible than an individual (often defending themselves — sometimes in jurisdictions far from home). Beckerman highlights all of the problems with the way the RIAA runs its cases, and makes a series of quite reasonable suggestions for judges in how to handle such cases should they show up in court. It’s a good guide, that also highlights many of the underhanded tactics that the RIAA uses in filing its cases. It’s well worth a read if you haven’t seen it elsewhere.
If I have one complaint, it’s the same one I leveled against John Duffy recently. While the article does mention Beckerman’s website, it does not mention that he represents many clients against the RIAA (including in ongoing trials). That would appear to be something of a conflict of interest, in that he’s making a bunch of suggestions for how judges should basically side with his arguments in those cases. I guess I’m learning that such “disclosures” are generally not considered necessary in the legal community.
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