What happens when you reply to an email in which the entire German Parliament is looped in? You send that mail server into complete and utter chaos which, i would assume, brings der legislative machine to a screeching halt. More »
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Someone Took Down the German Parliament’s Email System With a Single Click [Email]
Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has promised us a permanent Moon base by 2020. Many people have been calling Newt’s vow a publicity stunt, while others have chimed in by attacking the idea of a lunar base in and of itself, with assertions like “real scientists know [a Moon base] is fantasy.” More »
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Newt Gingrich is right: We need a permanent Moonbase [Astronomy]
ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is the notorious, unprecedented secret copyright treaty that was negotiated by industry representatives and government trade reps, without any access by elected representatives, independent business, the press, public interest groups, legal scholars, independent economists and so on. Time and again, the world’s richest governmental administrations (only rich countries were in the negotiation) told their own parliaments and congresses that they could not see what was in the treaty, nor know the details of the discussion.
The European Parliament was one of the bodies that asked its administration to share the treaty discussions with the elected members, only to be turned down. Cables in the Wikileaks dumps showed US officials orchestrating this secrecy because they knew how unpopular this one-sided, heavy-handed copyright treaty would be. Freedom of Information requests to the Obama administration confirmed that the reason for the secrecy was the experience in transparent negotiation at the UN, which resulted in an uprising by developing nations, who saw stricter, more expansive copyrights as a means of extracting rents from the world’s poorest people.
Now the European Parliament is being arm-twisted into ratifying ACTA, which contains many of the worst provisions that Americans rejected in SOPA and PIPA. We need your help and input to resist this terrible, dirty, punishing treaty from coming to Europe.
(Thanks, noc314!)
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Stop ACTA: secretive treaty will bring in the worst of SOPA through trade obligations
Hugh Pickens writes “Google’s autonomous cars have demonstrated that self-driving vehicles are now largely workable and could greatly limit human error, but questions of legal liability, privacy and insurance regulation have yet to be addressed. Simple questions, like whether the police should have the right to pull over autonomous vehicles, have yet to be answered and legal scholars and government officials warn that society has only begun wrestling with laws required for autonomous vehicles. The big question remains legal liability for the designers and manufacturers as some point out that liability exemptions have been mandated for vaccines, which are believed to offer great value for the general health of the population, despite some risks. ‘Why would you even put money into developing it?’ says Gary E. Marchant, director of the Center for Law, Science and Innovation at the Arizona State University law school. ‘I see this as a huge barrier to this technology unless there are some policy ways around it.’ Congress could consider creating a comprehensive regulatory regime to govern the use of these technologies say researchers at the Rand Corporation adding that while federal preemption has important disadvantages, it might speed the development and utilization of these technologies (PDF) and should be considered, if accompanied by a comprehensive federal regulatory regime. ‘This may minimize the number of inconsistent legal regimes that manufacturers face and simplify and speed the introduction of these technologies.'”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Autonomous Vehicles and the Law
Oh come on! The best part about the mess that was Qwikster was the possibility of renting games from Netflix. Now they take that away from us too? That new season of Arrested Development better be amazing. More »
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Netflix Ditches Video Game Rentals [NetFlix]
While technologically inept government officials argue over the fate of our beloved interwebs, and the thought of people sharing data is scrutinized and villainized by those who admittedly “don’t get it”, those who feel that sharing is caring keep searching for new ways, and stuff, to share.
Pirate Bay, the website that has gained a notorious reputation among those fearful of file sharing, are about to become my personal heroes by revealing the newest torrent trend-sharing objects for 3d printing.
Downloading 3d object files for printing may sound like a concept straight from an episode of Star Trek but it’s going to be a reality sooner than you think, and I am so excited to see what people will create for the sake of 3d object sharing.
Download, print, paint, repeat-oh the joys of technology!
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Pirate Bay Reveals Newest Trend-Downloading Objects For 3D Printing
It remains to be seen if they’ll be the big game-changer in education that Google hopes they will be, but the company is making some progress at getting its Chromebooks into schools. The latest push is a deal with three US school districts, which will see some 27,000 Chromebooks land in the hand of students in Iowa, Illinois and South Carolina. As CNET reports, South Carolina’s Richland School District Two is making by far the biggest investment of the lot, ordering 19,000 Chromebooks that will be used as part of a three-year program for students in the third through twelfth grades. As for Google itself, it still isn’t being too specific on the total number of Chromebooks now being used by schools, noting only that “hundreds” of schools across 41 states are using them in at least one classroom.
Google strikes deal to bring 27,000 Chromebooks to US schools in three states originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Google strikes deal to bring 27,000 Chromebooks to US schools in three states