] SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A group of media and technology
] companies including Microsoft Corp. and Walt Disney Co.
] have agreed in principle to allow consumers to make legal
] backup copies of next-generation video discs and share
] their content on portable devices.
]
] The group, which also includes International Business
] Machines Corp., Intel Corp., Matsushita Electric
] Industrial Co. Ltd. and Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros.,
] will not have any technology to license until the end of
] the year

One small step for consumer electronics? One giant leap for fair use?

Reuters | Industry Deal Set on Allowing Limited DVD Copying

] We got to listen to Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple
] computer and hacker legend speak today with his HOPE
] keynote.

This speech has something I had never seen in countless shows about Woz or Apple. It talks about *why* he did and thought the way he did, as well as how he taught kids in school.

Steve Wozniak HOPE Keynote for download

] An ominous drawing of a face sporting Hitler's moustache
] and a vampire's coif was emblazoned on the bright red
] banners that hung behind the speakers' podiums. Printed
] underneath the grim visage was a warning: "Big Brother Is
] Watching You."

Wired on this year's Hope.

Wired News: A Gathering to Hack the System

] Former Enron CEO Ken Lay, left, is led into Federal Court
] by law enforcment officers in Houston Thursday July 8,
] 2004.

Nothing like a good perp walk.

Yahoo! News - AP Photo - Ken Lay

] Buried near the bottom of an article in last month's
] Wired is this little gem; Friendster rep Lisa Kopp
] insists, "We have a policy that we are not being hacked."
]
] I don't know if it's sad, scary or funny, but I can see
] someone in some corporate highrise somewhere actually
] saying this with a straight face.

Friendster: We Have a Policy that We Are *Not* Being Hacked || kuro5hin.org

] Citing problems with truancy and youth violence, the Los
] Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved an ordinance
] restricting the hours during which minors can visit
] Internet cafes and requiring the shops to install video
] cameras for security.

"PC Gangers"

Los Angeles clamps down on cybercafes | CNET News.com

These people are suing Google for trademark infringement.

My end of the world sense is tingling. Googles from the Goo. The Grey Goo?! The future does not need this..

googles.com from goo

] DuPree points me toward Brentwood, a town - or rather
] endless series of developments - north of Franklin. In
] Brentwood, the houses under construction are so big that
] workers look like ants on them, like a Salgado
] photograph. Princeton Hills, a Brentwood McMansion
] development, seems the perfect encapsulation of the new
] suburban Tennessee. At the gate of the development stands
] a brick frieze of a Confederate general in battle. Behind
] the gate, enormous mansions. Down the street, a Baptist
] church the size of an arena. Across the road, another
] field of McMansions going up, McMansions as far as the
] eye can see - each one another Republican vote, another
] $2,000 in the Bush campaign war chest.

"McMansion"

Tennessee - Kerry can't win it. But can Bush lose it? By David Plotz

] IMAGINE THAT your friendly local mail carrier, before
] delivering a letter for you, decides to steam it open and
] read its contents. An outrageous and illegal infringement
] on your privacy, obviously. But a federal appeals court
] in Boston has just permitted an Internet service provider
] to engage in exactly this kind of snooping when the
] message is sent in cyberspace rather than by snail mail.
] This ruling is an unnecessarily cramped parsing of a law
] that Congress meant to guard, not eviscerate, the privacy
] of communications.

The Post doesn't think highly of this ruling either..

] E-mail has become too ubiquitous, too central a facet
] of modern life, for this ruling to stand.

Derail E-Mail Snooping (washingtonpost.com)

] A police officer stops you on the street, then taps
] something into a device in the palm of his hand.
]
] The next minute, he knows who your relatives are, who
] lives in your house, who your neighbors are, the kind of
] car you drive or boat you own, whether you've been sued
] and various other tidbits about your life.

"Sir, what is your name?"

CNN.com - Cop on the beat now a walking database - Jul 1, 2004