Constitutional Council strikes down key portion of HADOPI law
France's Constitutional Council has thrown out the controversial HADOPI Création et Internet law, even as Minister of Cultural Affairs and Communication Christine Albanel spoke in Washington on Wednesday claiming that anyone who opposed the aggressive new access-control law was "in the wrong century."
The Constitutional Council reviewed HADOPI at the request of France's Socialist Party, which lobbied hard against the law. Had the Council not agreed to review HADOPI, a French representative to the European Parliament had already committed to taking the matter before the EU, which in turn had already spoken against the legislation. for now, though, it appears that France itself may take responsibility for rethinking the law.
T-Mobile: No, we did not say our security was breached
After an amended statement to the press yesterday regarding an apparent security incident, which appeared to confirm that an unauthorized entity had taken possession of its valuable customer information, T-Mobile now says in a statement to Betanews this afternoon that not only does the entity not possess customer information, but that no breach of security took place at all.
"Following a recent online posting that someone allegedly accessed T-Mobile servers, the company is conducting a thorough investigation and at this time has found no evidence that customer information, or other company information, has been compromised," the T-Mobile spokesperson told Betanews. "Reports to the contrary are inaccurate and should be corrected. T-Mobile continues to monitor this situation and as a precaution has taken additional measures to further ensure our customers' information and our systems are protected. As is our standard practice, customers can be assured if there is any evidence that customer or system information has been compromised, we would inform those affected as quickly as possible."
Recording artists claim their music is being boycotted over royalties
The fight over whether US terrestrial radio broadcasters should pay the same performers' royalties that Internet streaming radio broadcasters are paying, is getting extremely nasty. In a Facebook post this morning, the musicFIRST Coalition -- a group of recording artists who actively lobby in favor of equal royalties on all platforms -- stated it has filed a formal complaint with the Federal Communications Commission. In that complaint, the Coalition alleges that terrestrial broadcasters are actively boycotting airplay for its members' music.
As the Facebook post states, "According to the musicFIRST filing [with the FCC], one major radio group dropped a top selling artist's record after he spoke in support of performance rights legislation. The program director of a Florida radio station declined to add an artist's recordings to his station's playlist because the artist is listed as a member of the musicFIRST Coalition. Another director of programming told a representative of two prominent artists that the artist's support for the Performance Rights Act would have a 'chilling effect' on their relationship. And a Delaware radio station boycotted all artists affiliated with musicFIRST for an entire month."
Trillian Astra 4.0 beta goes public
Download Trillian Astra 4.0.0.109 beta for Windows from Fileforum now.
Last April, we profiled the initial beta release of Trillian Astra, the latest and most long-awaited version of one of the most popular multi-protocol instant messaging clients currently available for Windows. The new version is light years ahead of its predecessor with respect to its feature set, which now includes integration with Twitter, Skype chat, and e-mail in an effort to become a central console for online communication.
Confirmed: Computer use breeds klutzes
A study released Tuesday in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine appears to indicate that mere proximity to computers makes people incredibly clumsy. The report claims that over the past 13 years, in-home computer-related injuries involving bumping into, tripping over, or standing under falling computers are up sevenfold -- sending over 78,000 people, presumably not all of whom are Wile E. Coyote or one of the Three Stooges, to the emergency room.
Monitors are the main culprits, pouncing on innocent humans more often than any other piece of gear. When the survey began in 1994, 11.6% of acute injuries could be lain at the round plastic pedestal of the monitor; by 2003 -- around the era of the largest, heaviest CRT monitors -- that percentage was up to 37.1%. By the end of 2006, the percentage was back down to 25.1%. Injuries to the extremities were most common (57.4%).
Up front: Google Books copyright battle reheats
When is a settlement not a settlement? Yesterday we learned from the Twitter kerfuffle that no deal is certain until it's in writing; today we learn that even getting it in writing sometimes isn't enough. Several outlets have reported that the Justice Department has been sending out a number of civil investigative demands (CIDs) inquiring as to the terms of the agreement Google reached last year with the Authors Guild and assorted publishers.
Google's copyright battles continue
Facebook to offer first-come-first-served vanity URLs
In contrast to Twitter's announced rollout of identity verification -- measured, maybe even slow, and celebrity-oriented -- Facebook is going with the sheer-mayhem approach as the service throws open the registration process for vanity URLs late Friday evening.
Vanity URLs have been available on a very limited basis previously, but most URLs are simply numeric. But on Friday at 9:01 pm PDT (a minute after midnight on the 13th for the East Coast), users will be given the option to select one username of at least five characters in length and using the Roman alphabet, numbers or a dot.
Red Hat releases Fedora 11, debuts Fedora Community
Download Fedora 11 from FileForum now
Community is key with Fedora. As the free, open-source, home-oriented version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the Fedora Project relies on the developer and tester community to keep the operating system to its semiannual release schedule. A new version of the OS, Fedora 11, was released today and is available for download.
Colossal Patch Tuesday addresses 31 Windows, IE8 vulnerabilities
Just when it appeared Windows and its associated services were looking more stable month after month, Microsoft chose June to tackle a plethora of vulnerabilities including no fewer than 14 that its security engineers believe could be exploitable within the next 30 days.
Microsoft Security Response Center engineers Adrian Stone and Jerry Bryant were audibly panting as they delivered the news to Microsoft customers today. One critical remote code execution vulnerability that's being treated very seriously affects a much older version of the server product, Windows 2000 Server with Service Pack 4 serving as domain controllers, and running Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. "While it's ranked as a '1,' which means we expect it to be easily exploitable over the next 30 days after [the patch] is released," explained Security Program Manager Lead Adrian Stone, "...it was privately disclosed to us. A security researcher worked with MSRC responsibly to make sure that we did address the vulnerability and release it without any knowledge of the vulnerability to date. It's not being actively exploited, nor is there any data publicly available at this time that talks about [it] in in-depth, technical detail."
How long can Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 survive on life support?
Your first car is as special as your first love. Whether you purchased it after years of working after-school jobs, or it was a graduation gift from thrilled parents, that otherwise soulless piece of machinery takes on the characteristics of a beloved pet. You name it, we dress it up, you let it become an inextricable part of our personality, and you have trouble letting them go. Even after the thing has become a leaky, noisy, smelly hazard to the health and safety of everyone around it, you still hold onto it for long after it should have been retired.
As we endure the Next Great Recession and are forced to make our possessions last longer, I wonder if the same sort of attachment will apply to home video game consoles.
$99 iPhone 3G = game changer...iPhone 3G S = dud
The Cult of Mac's rumor maw out-talked Apple and has made the 3G S look even more like a lame incremental update than it actually is. Yes, it rocks a faster processor, faster data connection, improved camera, includes video recording and magnetometer, but the new product is disappointing. After all, prior to the keynote, Mac rumors included a new tablet, an "iPhone Nano," an iPhone on Verizon, a 64 GB iPod Touch, and of course, the return of ailing Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Expectations were high, and were left unfulfilled.
However, behind the smokescreen caused by the new device and its "battle" versus the Palm Pre, the only one year-old iPhone 3G with its new $99 price tag casts an ominous shadow over the entire handset business.
Not quite a Firefox release candidate, it's 'Beta 99'
Download Mozilla Firefox 3.5 Beta 99 for Windows from Fileforum now.
Already, Mozilla Firefox testers have already swallowed one unanticipated renumbering of the browser, so perhaps they'll be more acclimated to this development from last night: With two successive weekends of testing having been completed, and with kinks apparently remaining in what Mozilla wanted to call its Firefox 3.5 Release Candidate, the candidate for the Candidate was publicly released today anyway…just not as the RC.
Some EU roaming charges could plunge 80% or more in July
With what European telcos have been charging their customers for mobile movie downloads, they might have been able to fund the entire movie. Smartphone users in Ireland, for example, were being charged as much as €6.82 ($9.55 USD) per megabyte of bandwidth, when their phones roamed outside their service areas. Telcos had been blaming the high cost of interstate commerce for these extraordinary roaming rates.
But an agreement announced yesterday between the European Council of Ministers -- the coalition of telecom ministers of the EU's member states -- will effectively force those states to find a way around that problem. Starting Wednesday, July 1, telcos may only charge no more than €1 per megabyte (about $1.40 USD) for roaming download charges. In addition, SMS messaging charges across service boundaries (which usually means, across countries' borders) will be capped at €0.11, which is about one-third of what some Portuguese customers have been paying.
Up front: Persistent bugs set back Firefox 3.5 RC
Truly, Carol Bartz is the gift that keeps on giving to tech writers. During an interview on Fox Business News Monday, the Yahoo CEO uttered some tart criticism of Bing's momentary grab of the second-place StatCounter ranking last week ("They didn't beat us by much. It was one day."), an eyebrow-raising claim ("half the Internet users in the world use Yahoo"), and a smackdown concerning merger talk -- not the usual Microsoft chatter, but regarding AOL. More on the Unsinkable Carol Bartz later in What's Now, but first, what do you call a release candidate candidate?
Firefox's not-yet-release-candidate goes public
Could a T-Mobile data breach be traced to creaky machines?
Last Saturday, a group of hackers cited by Insecure.org claimed having pilfered "everything, their databases, confidential documents, scripts and programs from their servers, financial documents up to 2009," belonging to T-Mobile. If claims of a data breach are proven true, investigators should look to some of the machines brought into the company as part of previous deals with third-party providers to modernize the network.
They should also ask what part of "upgrade" the company doesn't understand.
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