] There are only seven months left before the FCC takes
] away your right to watch digital television on a device
] that isn't Hollywood-approved. Under the new "Broadcast
] Flag" regime, the FCC will mandate that every digital
] television device include the kind of technology that we
] see in cable PVRs (that erase your stored episodes of
] "Six Feet Under" after two weeks so that you'll be forced
] to pay-per-view your end-of-season marathon) and media
] center PCs (that won't let you burn "The Sopranos" to DVD
] because HBO has set a no-record flag in their cablecasts
] to force you to buy the DVD boxed sets).

] The tiny silver lining here is that if you can get an
] open, freedom-loving digital television tuner between now
] and the summer, you'll be able to go on doing practically
] anything you like with the digital television you receive
] over the air and with your unencrypted cable signal. If
] you choose to do this by plugging a DTV tuner into your
] computer, you'll be able to archive your shows on your
] hard-drive, manipulate them with your favorite editing
] software, and email clips to your friends.

Thought some of you might be interested in this info. There's some specific info for mac users in the article.

'Broadcast Flag' regime

] Reenie's head chip woke her by steadily increasing
] the perceived volume of a song by a British comedy
] troupe. Lots of trippy dreams last night. She
] couldn't remember them all this morning, but she was
] sure they were cool. She rolled out of bed and prepared
] for her "Commute" to the adjoining room. Reenie
] loved her job, well, as much as she could love any job.
] She got to work from home as much as she liked.
]
]
] Avoiding the mirror, she slipped on her jeans from
] yesterday and a sweatshirt. She had bought some new comfy
] clothes over the past week. For some goofy reason, all
] she seemed to have in her closet were suits and foreign
] yuppie wear, which were just not her. Maybe she could
] donate them to the homeless.
]
]
] Reenie's home workspace was a chaos of unwashed
] laundry, cola cans and papers. As she savored her morning
] A-1 Cola, she decided to interface with the office, make
] sure nothing was going on. "Good morning, Beth.
] How's things?"

If you liked "Ownz0red" by Cory Doctorow, which many of you did, you will definitely like this quick little 10 minute read. Futurismic is collecting short sci-fi stories and putting them on the web.

-Dolemite

Futurismic: Fiction

] Motorola and Apple are working together to develop a
] phone that will connect to a Mac or PC using a cable or
] Bluetooth connection that will be able to play back
] iTunes songs on the phone, including rights-protected
] songs acquired from the iTunes Music Store.

Motorola Apple iPod phone imminent?

] We seek to create a free source of news, where every
] human being is invited to contribute reports about events
] large and small, either from direct experience, or
] summarized from elsewhere. Wikinews is founded on the
] idea that we want to create something new, rather than
] destroy something old. It is founded on the belief that
] we can, together, build a great and unique resource which
] will enrich the media landscape.

Welcome to Wikinews

Wikipedia Creators Move Into News

]Google Desktop Search might just be too good. Using the new
]software, I was able to bypass user names and passwords that
]secure Web-based e-mail programs and view personal messages sent
]and received on public PCs.

]Using Google's new software on a shared computer at the Google
]booth at the Digital Life trade show floor I was able to easily
]search for, find, and read private Yahoo e-mail sent on the
]computer by previous users earlier in the day.

]Marissa Mayer, Google's director of consumer Web products, told
]me she wasn't surprised. "This is not a bug, rather a feature,"
]she says. Google always intended people to be able to index and
]search Web-based e-mail viewed and composed on PC, she says.
]Google Desktop Search is not intended to be used on computers
]that are shared with more than one person, she say.

She specifically said it was not intended for shared computers.

Google Desktop Search: Security Threat (The other side)

]It's bizarre when you think about it: At the moment, it's easier
]for most PC users to find information in the billions of pages t
]hat make up the Web than it is to find it on their own hard
]drives. That's because Windows' built-in search tools are so
]crude, and Google is so good. But with Google's new Desktop
]Search utility, help is at hand--because you can now use Google
]to search your drive.

]It's a completely Googlesque search experience, which means it's
]fast, uncluttered, and accurate. And because Desktop's just
]another kind of Google search, you can quickly hop between
]results on your own system and ones on the Web, in newsgroups,
]and in other Google repositories.

]while it's extremely cool, it's not perfect. For one thing, it
]can't index every type of file--for instance, it doesn't handle
]the e-mail program we use here at PC World, Lotus Notes. (Too bad-
]-Notes' built-in search tools are nearly as annoying as
]Windows'.)

]At the moment, at least, it's also short on advanced features.
]For example, it doesn't let you limit results to files created
]within a certain date range. (Even Windows search does that.)

]Then there's something my colleague Tom Spring has blogged a
]about: "This utility is so good that it finds stuff you might not
]want found, such as e-mails and chat transcripts."

Google's Desktop Search: First Impressions

Truly decentralised peer-to-peer (P2P) software can't be held accountable for its misuse, according to a US federal appeals court.

US Circuit Court in Los Angeles, threw a major brick in the path of entertainment companies which have been trying to have the courts shut down companies running the P2P networks.

"From the advent of the player piano, every new means of
reproducing sound has struck a dissonant chord with musical
copyright owners, often resulting in federal litigation. This
appeal is the latest reprise of that recurring conflict, and one
of a continuing series of lawsuits between the recording
industry and distributors of file-sharing computer software."

"[W]e live in a quicksilver technological
environment with courts ill-suited to fix the flow of
internet innovation....The introduction of new technology is always disruptive to old markets and particularly to those copyright owners whose works are sold through well-established distribution mechanisms," the court wrote.

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