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Comment Re:Don't trust 'em (Score 4, Insightful) 97

What exactly can be hidden in an open protocol specification that will compromise your personally sensitive data? By design, a protocol has to be something that people can actually implement to be useful - the payloads you send via that protocol are up to you (based on your choices of which pieces of software to use, etc.)
Medicine

Submission + - Supreme Court Orders Do-Over on Key Software Patents (arstechnica.com)

Fluffeh writes: "It seems that the US Supreme Court has an itch it just can't scratch. A patent granted to the Ultramercial company covers the concept of allowing users to watch a pre-roll advertisement as an alternative to paying for premium content and the company is demanding fees from the likes of Hulu and YouTube. Another company called WildTangent is however is challenging Ultramercial's "invention" as merely an abstract idea not eligible for patent protection. Add to this a recent ruling by the Supreme Court restricting patents — albeit on medical diagnostic techniques and you get into a bit of a pickle. The Supreme Court is now sending the Ultramercial case back to the lower courts for another round, which doesn't mean that the court disagrees with the original ruling, but rather that it thinks it is a patent case that is relevant to the situation and they want to re-examine it under this new light."

Comment Re:Article written by... (Score 5, Informative) 204

R.U. Sirius has been writing for years, and was the editor of Mondo 2000 magazine during the '90s, as well as co-author of Cyberpunk Handbook:: The Real Cyberpunk Fakebook with St. Jude. So yes, it's very real (and not the first time his work has found the convergence of cyberpunk and porn, either...)
Microsoft

Microsoft Readies a Rival To Spotify 216

Barence writes "Microsoft has confirmed it is preparing to launch a music streaming service. The service will be a direct rival to Spotify, hugely popular in the UK (but unavailable in the US), which allows users to stream music for free in return for listening to around a minute's worth of advertisements every half hour. 'It will be a similar principle to Spotify but we are still examining how the business model will work,' said Peter Bale, executive producer of MSN." The article claims that the new service will boost the popularity of the Zune player, though how this is to happen is not explained. There doesn't seem to be a close tie-in between device and service, as there is between the iPod and the iTunes Store.

Comment Re:I still don't like IPv6 (Score 1) 281

Who's going to manage that? The OS?

Meet my good friend DNS:

Hey, Joe - check out the pics that Tonya just put online: tonyas-pc.smithhousehold.comcast.net/pics/

Just because IPV6 is coming into play doesn't mean we suddenly jettison DNS - let's not go creating problems where they don't exist...devices have been self-registering in DNS via DHCP for a looooooong time - hell, even Microsoft OSes do it ;)

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