Dire warnings about the future of the Internet from Nitin Desai, chair of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). According to Mr Desai, the web could be splintered in the not-so-far future into national firewalls, high-speed fiefdoms and limited consumer choice. We have become used to the world-wide network where everyone Read more
Unless you are living under a rock (or don’t care about these sort of things), you will know that Google has purchased the popular video website YouTube for a staggering $1.65 billion USD (about £880 million GBP in real money). Only The Guardian has picked up on one of the Read more
Ars Technica has a summary of the visit from a group of brave Hobbits (Firefox developers) who visited Mordor (Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond) to have a look at potential interoperability issues between The One Ring (Windows Vista) and Narya, one of the three Elf rings (Firefox). You can also find Read more
(via Video Game Blog). The Board of Appeals of the European Patent Office has allowed a number of claims in a European patent application by games firm Konami (EP20060013875). The application is for a “Video game system and storage medium for storing program for use in the video game system”. Read more
Erick Iriarte from Alfa-Redi has forwarded a link to the Spanish book called “Manual del Copyleft”. I have oly browsed its contents, but it looks quite impressive. It can be downloaded directly and it’s released under a CC BY-SA licence (Reconocimiento-CompartirIgual 2.5 España). Excellent online resource, particularly because there has Read more
Norwegian DVD Jon (aka Jon Lech Johansen) has done it again. While he had already cracked earlier versions of Apple’s FairPlay DRM, there had not been releases for recent versions. His early crack, called FairKeys, was a crack that was used by Apple crack software such as JHymn, but it Read more
The U.S. Congress has voted the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, the latest piece of legislation that attempts to put a leash on objectionable internet behaviour. As far as online regulation goes, this bill looks like the real thing. The Act makes sure that some existing criminal activities apply to Read more
I have received a rather curious virus in my Inbox. The email reads: Mail server report.Our firewall determined the e-mails containing worm copies are being sent from your computer.Nowadays it happens from many computers, because this is a new virus type (Network Worms).Using the new bug in the Windows, these Read more
What makes people happy? This is a difficult question, particularly when one considers that there is a growing trend in some policy circles to emphasise happiness as a goal, instead of concentrating efforts on making people richer. The BBC even broadcast a series looking at the new science of happiness. Read more
LimeWire has replied to the RIAA suit against them with a countersuit. LimeWire has issued its answer to the plaintiff’s claim, and have counter-sued. The document makes an interesting argument against the RIAA’s anti-competitive practices. The main claim is that the RIAA has been operating as a cartel by promoting Read more