Nom du Keyboard writes "An article in Computerworld posits that the reason Microsoft has flip-flopped on allowing all versions of Vista to be run in virtual machines, is that it breaks the Vista DRM beyond detection, or repair. So is every future advance in computer security and/or usability going to be held hostage to the gods of Hollywood and Digital Restrictions Management? 'Will encouraging consumer virtualization result in a major uptick in piracy? Not anytime soon, say analysts. One of the main obstacles is the massive size of VMs. Because they include the operating system, the simulated hardware, as well as the software and/or multimedia files, VMs can easily run in the tens of gigabytes, making them hard to exchange over the Internet. But DeGroot says that problem can be partly overcome with .zip and compression tools -- some, ironically, even supplied by Microsoft itself.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

onehitwonder writes "As part of an ongoing quest to find a viable alternative to the Microsoft desktop in the enterprise, well-known healthcare CIO John Halamka spent a month using Novell SUSE 10 as his sole operating system. His conclusion? It's good enough for the enterprise. In Windows vs. Linux vs. OS X: CIO John Halamka Tests SUSE, he explains how SUSE stacks up against RHEL, Fedora, XP and OS X (in a life-critical business environment), and which issues should influence an enterprise-class organization to adopt it."

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News.com has the word that congress is set to re-visit taxing virtual goods, a concept they shelved a while back in order to consider the matter more fully. That's given the Congress' Joint Economic Committee time to come to a decision about what exactly the value of virtual goods means for players and game-makers. An economist with the group told CNet to expect their report sometime next month. "What that report will say is unknown, as the committee has kept entirely quiet about its thoughts. However, it's clear that something will happen. 'Given growth rates of 10 to 15 percent a month, the question is when, not if, Congress and IRS start paying attention to these issues,' [senior economist Dan] Miller, who is a fan of virtual worlds and economies, told CNET News.com in December. 'So it is incumbent on us to set the terms and the debate so we have a shaped tax policy toward virtual worlds and virtual economies in a favorable way.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

David Pescovitz: Dale Rippy, 62, killed a rabid bobcat with his bare hands when it attacked him on his porch in Wesley Chapel, Florida. The Vietnam vet was later treated for bites, scratches, and exposure to rabies. From Associated Press:

Dale Rippy endured the (25 pound) bobcat’s slashes and bites until it clawed into a position where he could grab it by the throat. Then he strangled it.

Link

UltravioletLED writes "A company in Petaluma, California has developed highly programmable desktop lasers. The same devices used in hospitals could also be used to turn any metal surface black by simply changing the software. From the article: 'The technology once filled a large room at DARPA until Raydiance scientists made it into a compact, tabletop unit. Schuler (The CEO) said he hopes it will replace just about any cutting device you can think of, from a big metal saw to a precise surgical blade ... Now that it's a little bigger than a breadbox, researchers want to use them to kill tumors, identify friend or foe during combat, and even remove tattoos.' Femtosecond lasers for eye surgery have been around for years now, but these new lasers are far smaller and promise to have much greater versatility."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

David Pescovitz: The Aether and Ether Experiment's Randy George recorded a terrific Theremin-driven cover of Gnarls Barkley's hit tune Crazy. Scott Beale of Laughing Squid spotted the video on YouTube. Link

The other day I was thinking about other kinds of Twitters. The thing we like about Twitter is that you can't post a book-length story about what's going on right now, you can only do a 140-character synopsis -- "I just got on BART" or "Driving to NoobCamp." It's one of those Worse Is Better or Less Is More things we like so much about the Internet. So I started making a list of different kinds of Twitter, and immediately gravitated to something I call TwitterGram, where you use the 140 characters to link to a 200K audio message. Think of it as Twitter meets podcasting.

So I created one these messages. Click on the link below to listen to it.

http://twittergram.com/dave/audiogram001.mp3

I linked to this message from my Twitter acct.

If you want to play the game, record a response, no more than 200K, upload it somewhere, and link to it from your Twitter account, and put @davewiner somewhere in the text of the twit (so I will see it). Of course I'll be surprised if anyone actually responds, but what the heck, maybe people will.

I have a funny feeling Chris Pirillo will like this.

Tom Morris responded! Yehi!!

My response to Tom's twittergram.

George Ellenberg says it's a great idea, but not practical because it's too much work.

My response to George is basically, yes, but if it's fun and people like it, it can be made easy.

Tom Morris suggests a URL scheme for TG's.

Twittergram #4. In the first few hours of brainstorming you don't have to deal with every issue every person might raise. Sometimes it's better just to suspend criticism, you don't even know if the idea of the moment is what you're going to implement. There's always someone who says you can't do it. Amazing how many of the big ideas of the Internet had to go through the objections of people who thought it couldn't work.

Amyloo stays well within the 200K limit. Thanks!

This is kind of like the Dixie podcast we did in 2005.

Twittergram #5. I'm going out for a bit, but when I get back I'll put up a web service that takes care of a bunch of the details of doing Twittergrams. Not all of them, but a lot. You'll need to have software on the desktop that can record an MP3, and that can send an XML-RPC or REST message to a server. You'll get back a URL, but you won't really need it, because it'll also take care of posting the MP3 to Twitter. And it'll probably also generate an RSS feed (it would be kind of ridiculous if I didn't do that too, as far as I know Twitter doesn't understand enclosures, and this app begs for them).

Baker House, the old Berkman Center building, where I had an office for a couple of years, is on the move. The building is moving down Mass Ave. It's a historic building so it can't be demolished and the law school wants to buid something new and modern where the building used to be.

Thanks to David Weinberger for the link.

The Ukranian Center, another historic building, is also moving today.

Cory Doctorow: I've been podcasting my fiction since September 2005, and I've basically caught up. There are a couple of novels in the can that will be coming into print shortly, and some collaborative stories, but apart from them, I've read it all.

So now I'm reading other people's stuff -- at least until I get more in the can. I'm starting with Bruce Sterling's brilliant, seminal book The Hacker Crackdown, a 1992 book that recounts the events that led to the founding of The Electronic Frontier Foundation, my former employer. Bruce released the book as a free electronic download nearly 10 years before I did the same with my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.

This book changed my life -- and the lives of countless others. It inspired me politically, artistically and socially. Last week, I saw Bruce at his home in Serbia and asked him if he minded my reading this aloud for the next 20 weeks or so. He gave me his blessing -- so here it is. Link, Podcast feed link

If you've been following this story so far, it shouldn't come as a shock that Take-Two has shelved Manhunt 2 for the moment, while they decide what to do next. The company is considering its options, and still fully supports the game as a 'work of art'. "Take-Two Interactive Software has temporarily suspended plans to distribute Manhunt 2 for the Wii or PlayStation platforms while it reviews its options with regard to the recent decisions made by the British Board of Film Classification and Entertainment Software Rating Board ... We continue to stand behind this extraordinary game. We believe in freedom of creative expression, as well as responsible marketing, both of which are essential to our business of making great entertainment." Analysts have already started weighing in, with some seeing this as unfairly targeting the GTA-maker for previous 'sins'.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's been tit for tat for some time; eBay bans Google payments, Google tries to throw a party mocking eBay, in response to which the service pulls all of its ads, fun corporate shenanigans. It seems as though, for the moment, the two companies have made up. News.com is reporting that eBay ads will once again be serviced via Google's adwords service, but that they will also be using alternative methods to a greater extent in the future. "Hani Durzy, a spokesman for San Jose, California-based eBay, said his company later on Friday would begin advertising on Google, but at reduced levels than previously. eBay had been buying tens of millions of keyword ads on Google each year. 'I will tell you it will be in a much more limited way than it was before,' Durzy told Reuters. 'What we found is that we were not as dependent on AdWords as some people thought.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's been tit for tat for some time; eBay bans Google payments, Google tries to throw a party mocking eBay, in response to which the service pulls all of its ads, fun corporate shenanigans. It seems as though, for the moment, the two companies have made up. News.com is reporting that eBay ads will once again be service via Google's adwords service, but that they will also be using alternative methods to a greater extent in the future. "Hani Durzy, a spokesman for San Jose, California-based eBay, said his company later on Friday would begin advertising on Google, but at reduced levels than previously. eBay had been buying tens of millions of keyword ads on Google each year. 'I will tell you it will be in a much more limited way than it was before,' Durzy told Reuters. 'What we found is that we were not as dependent on AdWords as some people thought.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Spamicles writes "Thousands of U.S. webcasters plan to turn off the music and go silent this Tuesday, June 26th, to draw attention to an impending royalty rate increase that, if implemented, would lead to the virtual shutdown of this country's Internet radio industry. In March, the Copyright Royalty Board announced that it would raise royalties for Internet broadcasters, moving them from a per-song rate to a per-listener rate. The increase would be made retroactive to the beginning of 2006 and would double over the next five years. Internet radio sites would be charged per performance of a song. A "performance" is defined as the streaming of one song to one listener; thus a station that has an average audience of 500 listeners racks up 500 "performances" for each song it plays."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Alexandros Roussos writes with a link to the site MacScoop, which claims to have obtained a roadmap for the months leading up to Leopard's release. It's a straightforward article, stating how much access individuals outside the company will have access to the product prior to October. "Major build on early August - In a little more than a month, Apple's development team targets a feature-full build. The build that was provided to developers during the World Wide Developers Conference earlier this month is actually not totally feature frozen. Some minor features are currently being finished for the system. These features will arrive in the August build along with user-interface improvements, sources told MacScoop. If you expect major 'wow' features or interface changes, you will be disappointed. What we may expect is additional settings and [some] user interface polish[ing]. Among the most criticized parts of the new user interface [are] the new menu bar and Dock."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes "Congress is now calling for a Dept. of Labor investigation into a Pittsburgh law firm after a video showing its attorneys advising employers how to game the immigration system was posted on YouTube. Cohen & Grigsby, the firm in question, issued a statement insisting their statements were commandeered and misused, but would not allow CBS to view the original video in its entirety. Cohen & Grigsby has also been advising employers since 2002 that they have nothing to fear if they keep employees in the dark about the existence of DOL-required H-1B Public Access Files."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

palewook writes "A recent breakthrough increased NASA's interest in a lunar-based space telescope. Researchers combined an ionic liquid surface and a layer of silver which produced a favorably reflective mirror."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A Washington woman sued by the RIAA has asked the Court to award her attorneys fees, after the record company plaintiffs (Interscope Records, Capitol Records, SONY BMG, Atlantic Recording, BMG Music, and Virgin Records) dropped their case against her after two years of litigation, in Interscope v. Leadbetter. The brief submitted by her attorneys (pdf) pointed out the similarity between Ms. Leadbetter's case and Capitol v. Foster. In the Leadbetter case, as well as Foster case, the RIAA sued the woman solely because she had paid for an internet access account, and then later in the case attempted to plead 'secondary liability' against her without any factual basis for doing so. This tactic had been repudiated by Judge Lee R. West in Capitol v. Foster as 'marginal' and 'untested' in his initial decision awarding attorneys fees, and in his later decision denying the RIAA's motion for reconsideration."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Re the "people-ready" discussion.

There are a couple of reasons why the writers shouldn't have done what they did, and in all the comments already posted, no one has gotten to this.

First, Mike Arrington implies, in the title of his post, that everyone knows about this practice. Maybe it's disclosed, quite possibly he has written about it and I missed it. But to imply that everyone knows they're doing it is wrong. I didn't. I'm sure others didn't as well.

Second, and this is the really important one. It's one thing to let Microsoft buy space on your site (it's called advertising) and quite another to accept Microsoft money for words coming out of your mouth. Next month when we read something positive on these sites about Microsoft, how are we supposed to know if it's an opinion, or just another example of being paid to say something supportive of Microsoft.

The only one of the people involved who showed any interest in what others think is Om Malik, and even his interest was conditional. In public writing, what people think of your writing is very important. They may not agree with you, they may not like what you say, they may not like you, but you want to be sure they know where you're coming from. Any doubt about that removes value from your work. Do it often enough and it removes all value.

Mike says that this discussion cost him money that he needs to make payroll. I encourage him to look at a bigger picture. Any cloud over his integrity with readers will have a much bigger impact, imho.

Comprehensive roundup from Jeff Jarvis.

Doc Searls: "The question isn't whether advertisers are paying for text in a box. It's whether they're they're also buying kinder treatment in editorial postings. We need to hear that. Not to be told where to go."

Dan Blank brings some welcome comic relief to the drama.