bcrowell writes "California Governor Jerry Brown has signed SB 1052 and 1053, authored by state senator Darrell Steinberg, to create free textbooks for 50 core lower-division college courses. SB 1052 creates a California Open Education Resources Council, made up of faculty from the UC, Cal State, and community college systems. The council is supposed to pick 50 core courses. They are then to establish a 'competitive request-for-proposal process in which faculty members, publishers, and other interested parties would apply for funds to produce, in 2013, 50 high-quality, affordable, digital open source textbooks and related materials, meeting specified requirements.' The bill doesn't become operative unless the legislature funds it — a questionable process in California's current political situation. The books could be either newly produced (which seems unlikely, given the 1-year time frame stated) or existing ones that the state would buy or have free access to. Unlike former Gov. Schwarzenegger's failed K-12 free textbook program, this one specifically defines what it means by 'open source,' rather than using the term as a feel-good phrase; books have to be under a CC-BY (or CC-BY-SA?) license, in XML format. They're supposed to be modularized and conform to state and W3C accessibility guidelines. Faculty would not be required to use the free books."

Sony has announced plans to launch PlayStation-centric apps for iOS 4 and Android devices. While the apps doesn't actually let users play games, it allows them to interact with various PlayStation Network functions. "This includes allowing players to view various trophies they and their friends have won in order to validate their self-worth. Players will also be able to view friends' online status and browse games for the PS3, PS2, and PSP with the app, as well as catch up on news and any relevant hardware announcements. If they see anything they like, the app will integrate with Facebook, Twitter, and e-mail to make for easy sharing." The app will be released for several European countries to start, with more versions and languages to follow.

jeek writes "While I certainly don't agree with it, this article tries to make the case that Net Neutrality may actually be bad for America. From the article: 'If the government regulates net neutrality, policies for internet access are set by one entity: the FCC. However, if the government stays out, each company will set its own policies. If you don’t like the FCC’s policies, you are stuck with them unless you leave the United States. If you don’t like your internet service provider’s policies, you can simply switch to another one. So which model sounds better to you?'"

An anonymous reader writes "Democratic Sen. Al Franken weighed in on Net Neutrality over the weekend at the Netroots Nation conference of liberal activists in Las Vegas, calling it 'the First Amendment issue of our time,' and warning against Republican plans for less regulation. More from a blog post on CBSNews.com: 'Speculating on what the Internet could morph into under the Republicans' preferred lack of regulation, Franken asked the audience of bloggers how long it would take before the Fox News website loads significantly more quickly than the Daily Kos website. "If you want to protect the free flow of information in this country, you have to help me fight this," he said.'"

An anonymous reader writes "An article at CNET is reporting on the Obama administration's push for warrantless tracking of the location of cell phones (Verizon Wireless stores location data for one year, for instance). The Justice Department says no warrant is necessary: 'Because wireless carriers regularly generate and retain the records at issue, and because these records provide only a very general indication of a user's whereabouts at certain times in the past, the requested cell-site records do not implicate a Fourth Amendment privacy interest.'"

Cytalk writes "A Maine legislator wants to make the state the first to require cell phones to carry warnings that they can cause brain cancer, although there is no consensus among scientists that they do and industry leaders dispute the claim. The now-ubiquitous devices carry such warnings in some countries, though no US states require them, according to the National Conference of State Legislators. A similar effort is afoot in San Francisco, where Mayor Gavin Newsom wants his city to be the nation’s first to require the warnings."

Fraggy_the_undead writes "According to German IT news site heise.de, yesterday several 3D showings of Avatar couldn't take place (German; Google translation to English), because the movies were DRM protected such that there had to be a key per copy of the film, per film projector, and per movie server in the theater. The key supplier, by the name Deluxe, was apparently unable to provide a sufficient number of valid keys in time. Moviegoers were offered to get a refund or view an analogue 2D showing instead."

Hackajar writes "Have you ever caught yourself running for the volume control when a TV commercial comes on? Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (D-CA) has, and is submitting legislation that would require TV commercials in the US to stay at volume levels similar to the programming they are associated with. From the article: 'Right now, the government doesn't have much say in the volume of TV ads. It's been getting complaints ever since televisions began proliferating in the 1950s. But the FCC concluded in 1984 there was no fair way to write regulations controlling the "apparent loudness" of commercials.'"

Trailrunner7 writes "It's been about seven months since Obama announced his plan to hire a cybersecurity coordinator, and the job is still vacant. Several prominent security experts have turned the position down, and in an interview on Threatpost, Purdue professor Gene Spafford says that the position is pointless. 'It won't have any statutory authority. It won't have any budgetary authority. That does not give it much authority of any kind. So when I hear that there are supposedly people who have been interviewed for this cyber coordinator job and didn't take it, I'm not surprised. It's not a winning position. I'm not at all surprised by the fact that it's empty. That position is a blame-taking position,' Spafford said."

Philip K D writes "Award-winning SF author and BoingBoing co-editor Cory Doctorow has an editorial in today's Times of London. Doctorow elegantly eviscerates the basic injustice posed by the imminent Mandelson '3 Strikes' law in Britain. He makes the explicit observation: 'The internet is an integral part of our children's education; it's critical to our employment; it's how we stay in touch with distant relatives. It's how we engage with government. It's the single wire that delivers freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly. It isn't just a conduit for getting a few naughty free movies, it is the circulatory system of the information age.' It is worth noting that Doctorow was influential in the creation of the Creative Commons. He has enjoyed considerable commercial success for his writings, owing in no small part on his insistence that his work be made available for unrestricted electronic distribution and copying." In related news, the UK's second-largest ISP, TalkTalk, is now threatening legal action if Mandelson's plan goes through.