Fred sez,

Next week, Free Culture @ NYU will be hosting the first American screening of the 2007 film Good Copy Bad Copy. The documentary highlights the current state of copyright and culture, and features prominent copyright players such as Girl Talk, Lawrence Lessig, Renaldo Lemos, and Dan Glickman.

We're especially excited to announce that immediately following the screening, we'll be hosting a question and answer session with the film's award-winning Danish co-director, Henrik Moltke and Fritz Attaway, the MPAA's Executive VP and Special Policy Advisor. If you're at all interested in these issues, or want to meet a director working in free culture, or even just want to meet someone from the MPAA, you should absolutely come! The film is a wonderful introduction to the topics that Free Culture @ NYU deals in and this screening will be a fantastic opportunity to learn more about what we’re working towards.

The event is free and open to the public. Check the link for the time and place!

Link (Thanks, Fred!)

See also: Good Copy, Bad Copy: superb copyright documentary on the remix wars

Pablos sez, "I hacked my iPhone and now I'm suing Apple and AT&T for trying to stop me. This isn't a frivolous case, we want these companies to respect the legal limits on what they can do to their customers. I'm sad to be suing a company I've loved since third grade, but adopting the worst practices of other industries makes them a lot less lovable. The complaint for this class action suit was filed last Friday, and I encourage everyone interested to read it." Link (Thanks, Pablos!)

lousyd writes "CNN Money reports that DARPA and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency have given $4.9 million to Lockheed Martin to develop an image recognition system that will be used to scan satellite images and photographs for familiar objects. Called Object Recognition via Brain-Inspired Technology (ORBIT), the system will fuse commercial airborne EO and LIDAR sensor data into a three-dimensional, photo-realistic model of the landscape. The brains of the system, so to speak, will be Numenta's Hierarchical Temporal Memory technology, modeled on the technology growing inside human heads. The system is expected to increase image analysts' productivity by 100 times."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Shocking Autopsy is a Operation-style game that shocks you if your tweezers touch the edge of the metal lined cavity.

Stay calm and remember your medical training as you remove the weapons from this poor soul. But operate with care -- one false move and you're in for a shock! Includes a shock-free setting for kids or anyone who doesn't like shocks.

Link (Thanks, Arp!)

bednarz writes "Swiss officials are using quantum cryptography technology to protect voting ballots cast in the Geneva region of Switzerland during parliamentary elections to be held Oct. 21, marking the first time this type of advanced encryption will be used for election protection purposes. "We would like to provide optimal security conditions for the work of counting the ballots," said Robert Hensler, the Geneva State Chancellor. "In this context, the value added by quantum cryptography concerns not so much protection from outside attempts to interfere as the ability to verify that the data have not been corrupted in transit between entry and storage.""

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Following the Supreme Court's April Teleflex v. KSR decision lowering the bar for what's considered "obvious" in granting a patent, the US Patent Office has finally gotten around to issuing new guidelines for how patent examiners are to determine whether or not the concept in the patent should be considered "obvious." As per the Supreme Court's ruling, patent examiners can now go beyond prior art "teaching, suggestion, or motivation" (TSM). Now, examiners can look at the prior art in the space and then the ordinary skill in the area and whether or not those of ordinary skill in the art would find the new offering obvious. This is definitely a step in the right direction (or, actually, a step back to where patents originally were supposed to be). Now let's see how well it's actually put into practice.

Sam installed a IE plugin called Web Viewer today, and when he clicked on the license "agreement," he noticed that it contained this clause:

The Software may contain third party software which requires notices and/or additional terms and conditions. Such required third party software notices and/or additional terms and conditions are made a part of and incorporated by reference into this EULA. By accepting this EULA, you are also accepting the additional terms and conditions, if any, set forth therein.

Get that? When you agree to the EULA for Web Viewer, you also agree to a bunch of other, nonspecified "agreements" somewhere else. Better hope that there's nothin' unreasonable in them! Link (Thanks, Sam!)

No two ways about it, American Airlines ripped me off.

The facts. My flight from Newark to Dallas was delayed by bad weather.

We were 1/2 hour late getting into Dallas. I only had 45 minutes to make the connection if we were on time, so I just had 15 minutes. I got to the gate for my SF flight with five minutes to spare. But the doors were closed, and they had given my seat away.

Now, in their computer, they knew I was coming. Why did they give my seat away? I guess they were betting that I wouldn't make it. Seems they could have told me that before I pushed it to get there with 5 minutes to spare.

Then the guy behind the counter told me I could standby on the next flight, in three hours. No guarantee I'd get a seat. I have a lot of miles on American. I choose to fly American because they treat me well, probably because of all the miles. But it's at times like this, when they treat me like garbage, that I see how it really works. Rather than take the chance of flying with an empty seat, they gave my seat to someone else.

I went down to the Admirals Club and called their 800 number and was treated well, but I knew I couldn't make a seat appear tonight. I'm staying in Dallas tonight, paying for it myself (they wouldn't pay), they got me on the first flight to SFO tomorrow morning. Not standing by.

But it doesn't change the fact that they gave my seat away while they knew I was trying to get to the gate, and I was only late because their flight was late. Miles or no miles, I think my good feelings for American are finally gone (it's not the first time I was told to go to hell by the airline, btw).

twilight30 writes "Discovery News is reporting that 'One of the most famous and scrutinized heavenly objects is 10 to 20 percent closer than we thought, say two teams of radio astronomers who have made some of the most precise cosmic distance measurements ever, with a telescope nearly as big as Earth. The Orion Nebula is the closest major stellar nursery to Earth, so it has been heavily studied to learn about the lives of stars. Its distance from Earth, however, has long been a matter of uncertainty, with an estimate made about 25 years ago in need of revision.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As posted today on BoingBoing, the upcoming release of SimCity Societies asks game players to consider how their city-building choices affect (virtual) climate change. Upping the ante on Chevron's online game Energyville, Societies was developed in collaboration with BP, nee British Petroleum. By piggybacking on the success of the SimCity franchise, BP will gain access to a much larger audience than Chevron's strategy of hoping users find its standalone game. While their stated goal of raising awareness of climate change issues and energy alternatives is admirable, BP's in-game branding smacks more of marketing than of educating. The real missed opportunity, however, would be if BP just uses the game to talk at players, even if what they have to say is informative. The SimCity community is one of the oldest and biggest "connected" communities around, and the very nature of the game brings together millions of individuals who enjoy solving problems. Rather than creating a glorified brochure, BP should leverage their participation in the game to foster a conversation between the company and individuals. That could mean allowing players to provide feedback on their experiences with in-game climate change or even (at the player's discretion) sending back entire game-play sequences that could be compiled and dissected by the company. BP, which faces changing realities of the energy industry, would do well to consider that they might learn more by listening to their customers than by telling their customers what the company already thinks. No such intent is obvious from what BP is saying about the game, but maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised.

Dan DiPasquo is an expert at the Techdirt Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Dan DiPasquo and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

a-twitter writes "After months of insisting there is nothing to patch, Microsoft has done a complete 180 on the URI protocol handling vulnerability, announcing in a security advisory that a Windows update will be released to revise URI handling code within ShellExecute() to be more strict. The MSRC blog explains the background and offers more details on this issue."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Just a few days after a class action lawsuit was filed in California against Apple for locking down the iPhone, the California Supreme Court ruled on a different case that may have an impact on the Apple case. It's given the go ahead on a separate lawsuit against T-Mobile for locking its phones and requiring an early termination fee. T-Mobile had argued that the terms of service required that any dispute go to binding arbitration, so that it didn't make sense to take it to the courts. Of course they want binding arbitration because companies almost always win in binding arbitration. The court found that it's perfectly reasonable to take this issue to court. How the courts will actually rule on the issue could make a big difference in the Apple/iPhone case -- as there is the possibility that the courts may find that (in California at least) locking a phone to a single network is not allowed. It may depend on the specific wording of state laws, as the specifics of such a case can get rather technical. To be honest, if a mobile phone operator wants to lock a phone to only their network, and people agree to it in the contract (or agree to an ETF), then that should be a contractual issue. It's a dumb business practice -- as many operators are starting to realize. However, that doesn't necessarily mean it should be illegal.

wattrlz writes "Apparently the current champion of v1*gr4 spamming solicited some of the wrong email boxes. Alexy Tolstokozhev was recently found murdered in his palatial spam-bought estate near Moscow. The implications of this hands on method of system administration are staggering."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

angelaelle writes "The current issue of Popular Mechanics is featuring their Breakthrough Awards program for inventors. Some of the winning inventions help improve the living conditions for people in third world countries using low-tech materials and assembly methods. Technologies like this cookstove for people in Darfur, and in the case of this Windbelt developed by Shawn Frayne, could be used to provide cheap, clean energy alternatives. The website features fascinating, inspiring videos talking about the inventor's 'eureka moment', focusing on the inventor as well as the technology."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Just Posted! After a longer than anticipated delay we're finally all set up to start posting reviews again, starting with one we've had sitting around for a while now, Sony's ultra compact Cyber-shot DSC-W80, an ultra-slim 7.2MP model with 3x zoom and HDTV output. And for those of you waiting for our reviews of the current 'headline' cameras - fear not; they're well under way!

Last month we wrote about how the economics of music were changing so rapidly that it highlighted how out of touch the record labels are when they still think charging $1 per song makes sense, just as Apple is releasing an iPod that can hold 40,000 songs. Of course, that's only looking at the present. We all know technology is rapidly changing, and Princeton computer science professor Ed Felten notes that it won't be long until anybody can carry all music ever recorded in their pocket. In fact, everyone will be able to do that. At that point, the economics of the industry are totally out of whack with what the recording industry still believes. Felten notes that if anyone can buy a bit of storage that contains all music ever recorded, just think how impossible it will be to shut down file trading operations. All of the music will be out there available to everyone. As long as one of your friends has access to all that music, you just need to create a private sharing network with them -- and the RIAA's goons will never know about it. Felten suggests this leads to a world where the industry is finally going to need to accept some kind of universal licensing plan -- or they might just realize that letting the music go free has plenty of benefits elsewhere in the music business model ecosystem. Of course, that would take more forward thinking record industry execs... and we may be waiting a long, long time for that to happen.

The Skinny writes "Today is a historic day for the SETI program. The New York Times reports that astronomers are flipping the switch today on the Allen Telescope Array — 350 antennas, each 20 feet in diameter — which will, among other things, extend the search for extraterrestrial life a thousandfold. From the article: ' There are some 200 billion stars in the galaxy, and a significant fraction of them have planets. Estimates of the number of intelligent civilizations in the galaxy have ranged from one (or none, if you are particularly discouraged about human affairs) into the millions. Dr. Shostak calculated that the full Allen array would be able to detect a signal from as far as 500 light years that is only a few times more powerful than what can now be sent by the Arecibo radio telescope, a 1,000-foot-diameter dish in Puerto Rico that is the world's largest (although it is in danger of being shut down to save money). That translates to about a million stars, which he said was getting into a promising number. Dr. Shostak described the expanded search as looking for the needle in the proverbial haystack with a shovel instead of a spoon.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.