Tag: science

Ask Slashdot: How To "Prove" a Work Is Public Domain?

New submitter eporue writes: YouTube claims that I haven’t been able to prove that I have commercial rights to this video of Superman. They are asking me to submit documentation saying “We need to verify that you are authorized to commercially use all of the visual and audio elements in your video. Please confirm your material is in the public domain.” I submitted a link to the Wikipedia page of the Superman cartoons from the 40s where it explains that the copyright expired, and to the Archive page from where I got it. And still is not enough to “prove” that I have the commercial rights. So, how do you “prove” public domain status ? Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ask Slashdot: How To "Prove" a Work Is Public Domain?

Mozilla Tests Improved Privacy Mode For Firefox

An anonymous reader writes: Firefox’s privacy mode stops your computer from keeping track of where you’ve browsed, but it doesn’t do anything about external tracking. A new feature just rolled out to the Developer Edition and the Aurora channel now actively tries to block online services from tracking you. “Our hypothesis is that when you open a Private Browsing window in Firefox you’re sending a signal that you want more control over your privacy than current private browsing experiences actually provide.” The feature uses a blocklist maintained by Disconnect.me to stop you from navigating to sites known to log your personal data. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Mozilla Tests Improved Privacy Mode For Firefox

CNN and CBC Sued For Pirating YouTube Video

vivaoporto sends word that in a rare case of an individual taking on large corporations for copyright infrigement, a New York man has sued news networks CNN and CBC after they took a video of his from YouTube and broadcast it on the air without licensing it. His video shows a winter storm in Buffalo generating huge amounts of lake effect snow. The man, Alfonzo Cutaia, decided to enable monetization on his video, selecting the “Standard YouTube License, ” “a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of [the video]. All other rights are reserved to the copyright owner and standard copyright laws and exceptions apply.” Cutaia says the CBC used his video with their logo on it. The CBC confirmed this, and said they received a 10-day license from CNN, who had no legal right to do so. His lawsuit now accuses them both of “intentional and willful” copyright infringement. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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CNN and CBC Sued For Pirating YouTube Video

Former Employees Accuse Kaspersky Lab of Faking Malware

An anonymous reader writes: Reuters reports that two former employees of Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab faked malware to damage the reputations of their rivals. The alleged campaign targeted Microsoft, AVG, Avast, and others, tricking them into classifying harmless files as viruses. The ex-employees said co-founder Eugene Kaspersky ordered some of the attacks as retaliation for emulating his software. The company denied the allegations, and Kaspersky himself reiterated them, adding, “Such actions are unethical, dishonest and their legality is at least questionable.” The targeted companies had previously said somebody tried to induce false positives in their software, but they declined to comment on the new allegations. “In one technique, Kaspersky’s engineers would take an important piece of software commonly found in PCs and inject bad code into it so that the file looked like it was infected, the ex-employees said. They would send the doctored file anonymously to VirusTotal.” The alleged attacks went on for more than 10 years, peaking between 2009 and 2013. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Former Employees Accuse Kaspersky Lab of Faking Malware

Saltwater lamp could replace dangerous kerosene lights

Add / Remove The majority of inhabitants on the Philippines’ 7000 islands do not have access to electricity. Instead, they rely primarily on kerosene powered lamps to provide light sources at night, which are not only hazards and pollutants, but also very expensive and inconvenient to refill. Hoping to provide a solution, SALt is an efficient, safe light source powered by salt and water, which can last for up to six months when used for eight hours a day. The SALt lamp — which stands for Sustainable Alternative Lighting — is an LED light that makes use of the science behind the Galvanic cell (the basis for batteries) and changes electrolytes to a non-toxic, saline solution. Users simply add one glass of water and one tablespoon of salt — saltwater from the ocean can also be used to power the device. SALt is the latest of a number of devices which could help lessen the reliance on kerosene power in disconnected regions. We have also seen solar school backpacks that charge up on the walk home, an energy harnessing musical instrument , and a flatpack biofuel stove . What other sustainable resources could be tapped into for similar purposes? Website: www.salt.ph Contact: infosaltph@salt.ph

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Saltwater lamp could replace dangerous kerosene lights

Samsung Unveils V-NAND High Performance SSDs, Fast NVMe Card At 5.5GB Per Second

MojoKid writes: Sometimes it’s the enterprise sector that gets dibs on the coolest technology, and so it goes with a trio of TCO-optimized, high-performance solid state drives from Samsung that were just announced, all three of which are based on three-dimensional (3D) Vertical NAND (V-NAND) flash memory technology. The fastest of bunch can read data at up to 5, 500 megabytes per second. That’s the rated sequential read speed of Samsung’s PM1725, a half-height, half-length (HHHL) PCIe card-type NVMe SSD. Other rated specs include a random read speed of up to 1, 000, 000 IOPS, random write performance of up to 120, 000 IOPS, and sequential writes topping out at 1, 800MB/s. The PM1725 comes in just two beastly storage capacities, 3.2TB and 6.4TB, the latter of which is rated to handle five drive writes per day (32TB) for five years. Samsung also introduced two other 3D V-NAND products, the PM1633 and PM953. The PM1633 is a 2.5-inch 12Gb/s SAS SSD that will be offered in 480GB, 960GB, 1.92TB, and 3.84TB capacities. As for the PM953, it’s an update to the SM951 and is available in M.2 and 2.5-inch form factors at capacities up to 1.92TB. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Samsung Unveils V-NAND High Performance SSDs, Fast NVMe Card At 5.5GB Per Second

Objects That Couldn’t Be Made Before 3D Printers Existed

3D printing isn’t just for making unique stuffed animals or weird fake meat . It allows us to fabricate objects we never could with traditional manufacturing. Here are some of the incredible things we can print now, which were nearly impossible to make before. Read more…

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Objects That Couldn’t Be Made Before 3D Printers Existed

Firefox 40 Arrives With Windows 10 Support, Expanded Malware Protection

An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today launched Firefox 40 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Notable additions to the browser include official Windows 10 support, added protection against unwanted software downloads, and new navigational gestures on Android. Firefox 40 for the desktop is available for download now on Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. As always, the Android version is trickling out slowly on Google Play. Changelogs are here: desktop and Android. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Firefox 40 Arrives With Windows 10 Support, Expanded Malware Protection

Continued Cord Cutting Hits the Pay TV Business Hard

An anonymous reader writes: Cord cutting is not a new concern for the pay TV business but a recent massive sell-off in media stocks has many in the industry worried. Cable, satellite and TV companies suffered their worst-ever quarterly subscriber declines losing more than half a million accounts, sending stocks tumbling. Researchers say this may be the beginning of the end for the pay TV business. According to analysts Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson: “A year ago, the Pay TV sector was shrinking at an annual rate of 0.1 percent. A year later, the rate at which the Pay TV sector is declining has quickened to 0.7 percent year-over-year. That may not seem like a mass exodus, but it is a big change in a short period of time. And the rate of decline is still accelerating.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Continued Cord Cutting Hits the Pay TV Business Hard

Why the Freemium Business Model Isn’t What It Used To Be

mattydread23 writes: A few years ago, every enterprise software company was trying freemium — the idea of giving a product away to build users, then charging for additional features. Now, that model seems to be losing favor, except with open source software. Business Insider talks to enterprise founders and VCs to figure out why ‘freemium’ wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Why the Freemium Business Model Isn’t What It Used To Be