In a move that would mark the end of a digital music era, Sony BMG Music Entertainment is finalizing plans to sell songs without the copyright protection software that has long restricted the use of music downloaded from the Internet, BusinessWeek.com has learned. Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony (SNE) and Bertelsmann, will make at least part of its collection available without so-called digital rights management, or DRM, software some time in the first quarter, according to people familiar with the matter.

Sony BMG Plans to Drop DRM

A couple were banned for life from a shopping centre - because they were taking photos of their beloved grandchildren.

Kim and Trevor Sparshott were ordered to stop taking photos because they were causing a security threat.

They were thrown out of the centre after they took out a camera to snap the look on the youngsters' faces when they turned up unexpectedly.

Does this make anyone feel safe?

Couple banned for life from shopping centre and branded 'terrorists' - for taking photos of their grandchildren | the Daily Mail

The officers ask simple questions:

"How are you today?"

"Where are you heading?"

"Is this all your property?"

"It's almost irrelevant what your answers are," Maccario said. "It's more relevant how you respond. Vague, evasive responses -- fear shows itself. When you do this long enough, you see it right away."

I wonder if they can guess your weight too. Airport security is retarded.

Airport profilers: They're watching your expressions

Image: Bryn Nelson
Bryn Nelson
Columnist
A tiny assembly line that powers the whip-like tail of sperm could be harnessed to send future nanobots or other tiny medical devices zooming around the human body, according to a preliminary research report.

Scientists look to sperm to power nanobots - Frontiers- msnbc.com

Robin Garrison, an off-duty 42-year-old firefighter, was walking in Berliner Park in Columbus, Ohio, in May when he saw a woman sunbathing topless under a tree.

He approached her and they started talking and getting comfortable, the woman smiling and resting her foot on his shoulder at one point.

Eventually, she asked to see Garrison's penis; he unzipped his pants and complied.

Seconds later, undercover police officers pulled up in a van and arrested Garrison; he was later charged with public indecency, a misdemeanor, based on video footage taken by cops who were targeting men having sex or masturbating in the park. While topless sunbathing is legal in the city's parks, exposing more than that is against the law.

Entrapment much?

ABC News: Topless Woman Lured Perverts for Police

Each year since 1997, the US-based Electronic Privacy Information Center and the UK-based Privacy International have undertaken what has now become the most comprehensive survey of global privacy ever published. The Privacy & Human Rights Report surveys developments in 70 countries, assessing the state of surveillance and privacy protection.

The most recent report published in 2007, available at http://www.privacyinternational.org/phr, is probably the most comprehensive single volume report published in the human rights field. The report runs over 1,100 pages and includes 6,000 footnotes. More than 200 experts from around the world have provided materials and commentary. The participants range from eminent privacy scholars to high-level officials charged with safeguarding constitutional freedoms in their countries. Academics, human rights advocates, journalists and researchers provided reports, insight, documents and advice. In 2006 Privacy International took the decision to use this annual report as the basis for a ranking assessment of the state of privacy in all EU countries together with eleven non-EU benchmark countries. Funding for the project was provided by the Open Society Institute (OSI) and the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. Follow this link for more details of last year's results.

Leading surveillance societies in the EU and the World 2007

That's because at least one lawyer for the Recording Industry Association of America, the Big Four record companies' lobbying arm and primary legal weapon, considers the copying of songs from your own CDs to your own computer, for your own personal use, to be just as illegal as posting them online for all to share, according to a federal lawsuit filed in Arizona.

Crap! Here we go again on the battle for FairUse!

Was this not already ruled on in the whole VHS/BETA debacle?

Ripping MP3s Illegal, Grounds for Lawsuit

PERHAPS Ponce de Leon kept too far south in his search for the Fountain of Youth. He might have headed to Coney Island and there made himself young riding on a carousel, or a roller coaster, if a medical theory recently advanced is true—that, since old age is our final yielding to the inevitable, resistless pull of gravity, it is necessary only to overcome gravity and you overcome all that brings you down to earth.

Hmm... maybe I should start standing on my head. Or drive with rattle more often, they're similar things sometimes.

Modern Mechanix » Old Age Rejuvenator Centrifuge

A church and Christian newspaper in Malaysia are suing the government after it decreed that the word "Allah" can only be used by Muslims.

In the Malay language "Allah" is used to mean any god, and Christians say they have used the term for centuries.

Opponents of the ban say it is unconstitutional and unreasonable.

It is the latest in a series of religious rows in largely Muslim Malaysia, where minority groups claim their rights are being eroded.

Muslims must have an interesting view of intellectual property.

BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Malaysian row over word for 'God'

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. hotel heiress Paris Hilton's potential inheritance dramatically diminished after her grandfather Barron Hilton announced plans on Wednesday to donate 97 percent of his $2.3 billion (1.16 billion pounds) fortune to charity.

Ha-ha.

Paris loses out: Hilton fortune pledged to charity | Entertainment | Reuters