Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 8th Feb 2013 02:02 UTC
"This means that people can no longer get convicted for violating the copyright monopoly alone. The court just declared it illegal for any court in Europe to convict somebody for breaking the copyright monopoly law when sharing culture, only on the merits of breaking the law. A court that tries somebody for violating the copyright monopoly must now also show that a conviction is necessary to defend democracy itself in order to convict. This is a considerably higher bar to meet." Well, that's progress, I guess.
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 17:26 UTC
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:38 UTC
At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 11:29 UTC
The day has finally come! Jolla has finally announced the launch device for its Sailfish operating system - and by god this is a looker. It's decidedly different from other phones out there, but it has good specifications and carries a relatively reasonably price tag - EUR 399, and it's up for pre-order today, shipping in the fourth quarter of this year.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:33 UTC
Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
Linked by David Adams on 05/16/13 4:23 UTC
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/11/13 21:41 UTC
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/08/13 14:22 UTC
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/02/13 15:28 UTC
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/29/13 21:06 UTC
Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/24/13 22:24 UTC
They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.More Features »
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2005-11-13
Except that is not what I said. What I said was that if you take a piece of content, and you say it's ok to share this whether the content owner wants you to or not, then you have no moral ground to tell others not to share things that you wish them not to. To that end, I think it's dumb to try and prevent sharing, period. Not because 'information wants to be free', but because if information is out there and somebody wants to share it, we do not have the technology to prevent them from doing so, and laws don't seem to do much to help in this regard, because it's easy to get away with. It's kind of like people smoking weed; in the US, we spend all kinds of money and resources to try and stop it, but it keeps going on, so now they have legalized it in two states (as welll they should havve).
Insofar as my name, address, phone number, names of family members, etc, this is all publically accessible information anyway, so why would I wish to keep it private? Anybody who wants to obtain this info can do so without much difficulty. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't in the phone book. And anyway, most of the tracking that goes on is because companies want to spam you with ads But if we had stricter 'do not call/do not mail' laws, what purpose would they have to track you anymore if they couldn't profit from it? Maybe they could use my personal info in the aggregate/statistical sense, but do I give a shit? As long as they're not calling my house during dinner and trying to sell crap to me, not at all.
And what about sensitive information like passwords and credit card numbers? Sure, companies COULD share that, but why would they? Any company that was caught sharing its customers' passwords probably wouldn't stay in business very long, so it's in their best interest to keep that stuff private. And who the hell would they share that with, besides people who wanted to hack into their system? Fail.
And anyway, we REALLY need to find better ways of identification so that this info does not have to be stored in databases. As for stuff you put online and need to keep private, that is what encryption is for. I've always said that if you have very sensitive data that's not secure enough to be stored on the server of your worst enemy, then it's not secure enough.
Edited 2013-02-08 07:32 UTC