The BBC reports that accounts in the popular game Half-Life 2 have been cancelled by the manufacturer. The developers were able to require authentication for the online part of the game, and have been able to shut them down. I am not sure why they are so enthusiastic about it. Read more
The latest version of Kazaa now offers internet phone technology from Skype. This seems to be a natural progression for their P2P technology, enhancing the possible non-infringing uses of such networks. However, Kazaa still suffers from spyware, and it has been also losing customers to e-Mule, which has built-in torrent Read more
Trust James Boyle to cut through the nonsense and provide an excellent picture of what is taking place with the calls for more protection for databases. The evidence is finally taking shape that more protection for databases in Europe has not been translated into more innovation. My favourite part of Read more
CNN reports that new software is being designed to tackle art forgeries. The software conducts a mathematical analysis of the piece, uses some algorithms and establishes wether a piece is forged or not. I am guessing that this will work better with classics and not with Brit Art. Can anybody Read more
The Nosoftwarepatents.com website has posted a statement by European OSS superstars Linus Torvalds (Linux), Michael Widenius (MySQL) and Rasmus Lerdorf (PHP) against software patents. The statement pleas to the European Council to consider the damage caused by software patents. They call the proposed directive “deceptive, dangerous, and democratically illegitimate”.
A new bill has passed in the United States which makes it a criminal offence to record movies in the theatre. The new bill had provisions that criminalised file sharing, but consumer pressure was enough to get them to drop the provisions. Yes, this is just what we need, more Read more
Attempts by the United States to obtain an agreement to ban cloning have stalled. Many countries oppose an all-out ban and prefer to maintain options open in things like stem cell research. Good news, but I wonder if the Bush administration had it wrong. I think that they just want Read more
The latest FUD from Microsoft may just be mere rubbish. Steve Ballmer recently made it clear in a conference in Asia that Linux violates 283 software patents. The problem is that this is done by quoting a study that actually says that Linux has similar patent risk than proprietary software. Read more
For those of us who rely upon Google for research, the new Google Scholar service comes at a great time. The service filters search results from several academic databases and journals. I have tested it and it works great. Is it goodbye to Lexis and Westlaw?
As usual, Windows computers have been hit with a virus. The Sober-I virus has been hitting Windows machines since yesterday. Apparently it replicates itself using Windows mailing programmes, and sends loads of copies of itself. It also deletes and modifies some files, which compromises Windows systems. I am glad that Read more