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Posted in Site News at 2:14 am by Guest Editorial Team
German cities following Munich’s open source exampleMunich’s IT department in late December posted an update on the city’s migration to a complete open source-based desktop system. It wrote that on 12 December it had migrated 9,000 systems over to Linux, five hundred more than expected. Nearly all copies of a proprietary office suites are uninstalled10 Reasons to Switch to Linux in 2012This is not a bad article but I wonder if there’s an editorial policy against mentioning GNU and software freedom when I read articles talking about the benefits of software freedom and gnu/linux without seeing those words.>Richard Stallman Was Right All AlongThe Open Source crowd is starting to understand the problem. Cori Doctorow sees the copyright battle as a prelude to the war on general purpose computing, transcript here, but sadly sees the language of the FSF as tedious. Diebold Virtualizes ATMs To Secure Banking DataVMware. I’m not sure they will dump Windows or just move it all to one place where it can be watched more carefully but the company seems to have finally learned that XP is not a good system to have in an automatic bank.HardwareHow a Montreal company won the race to build the world’s cheapest tabletThis is an inspiring story about how a team of talented immigrants at a small company in Montreal tweaked Linux/Android to satisfy what others considered an impossibly low price requirement and win a contract that will grow to 100 million units. SecurityNew Year’s nightmare: Brawls erupt among hotel revellers after electronic keys stop working at the stroke of midnightDenver police say they were called to the hotel as fights broke out among frustrated guests. Local KUSA-TV some revellers got sick in the hallways and the elevators were not working at the Denver Tech Center Marriott.Microsoft is a safe bet for blame when a major Microsoft partner is involved and none of the stories mention software by name.Defence/Police/AggressionBlackwater 3.0: Rebranded ‘Academi’ Wants Back In IraqICE [US Customs] Mistakenly Deports Missing Teen To ColombiaThe girl has been in jail for a year.Environment/Energy/WildlifeIf you can believe Tepco: Fukushima is in cold shutdown, says Japanese prime ministerGravelines 1 shut down for crack repairInspection work has revealed tiny cracks on a penetration at the bottom of Gravelines 1′s reactor pressure vessel. … similar faults were dealt with in 2003 at the South Texas Project site in the USA. … EDF has been requested by the ASN to check all its 900 MWe and 1300 MWe reactors for similar cracks – a total of 54 units.An undersea drilling operation by Chevron in Brazil has been leaking for more than a month.Obama Memo: Redeem Yourself With RailThe 2005-2008 period sent another stern warning that a discretionary, oil-based lifestyle was unlikely to be sustainable in America. … the Obama Administration could have easily used the financial crisis to start rebuilding our rail system: securing for itself a win-win in both job creation, and, a lessening of the economy’s energy intensity.With sobering energy cost statistics, a map of rail abandonment and plans for efficient rail revival.Who Has Authority To Regulate of Genetically Modified Animals? It’s Complicated.US regulation of transgentic animals is confusing and inadequate. The widespread use of toxic corn in the US shows that regulation is also unable to protect public health.FinanceApple May Hurt Shareholders With Patent WarSteve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple (AAPL) Inc., told his biographer that he’d rather wage “thermonuclear war” with Google Inc. than make deals to share its technology with the maker of the Android operating system. … as rulings start coming in, it might be time for a détente that helps Apple maximize the value of its patents, said Kevin Rivette, a managing partner at 3LP Advisors LLC, a firm that advises on intellectual property.Fat chance. Apple’s burnt it’s bridge with suppliers who will now do what they can to get loose.Anti-TrustMicrosoft uses Nokia money to advertise Winphone and bribe the salesforce.[$200 million will be spent] Thurrott notes that “on AT&T at least, Nokia is outspending Microsoft 2-to-1.” … the plan includes a per-unit sales incentive for retail employees that sell a Windows Phone handset. Microsoft friendly articles are disgusting.Censorship EA, Nintendo, Sony reduce SOPA support by 50%Although their individual express support of the bill has been removed, these companies still back it by virtue of their association with the ESA.Just like Microsoft and GoDaddy, they are only sorry that people noticed.How the US pressured Spain to adopt unpopular Web blocking lawCensoring flu virus research to keep the information out of the hands of terrorists is likely to do more harm than good, because the biggest danger comes from nature.It is now illegal to access any foreign website in the Republic of BelarusBangladesh man given jail term for PM Hasina Facebook postThere was alscontempt of court but no one should be dragged to court for what was allegedly said.PrivacyFacebook Has Become UselessI had 20 “groups” I placed people in, one for each security setting Facebook allowed me to specify as “custom”. I controlled who could see my wall, who could write on it, who could see my friends list, who could see where I worked, specific photo albums, etc. Employers versus family versus friends versus fans versus strangers — trust relationships. Then Facebook “simplified” security and suddenly a lot of people I friended who were controlled casual relationships suddenly had access to a bunch of personal information I didn’t want them to see.Less obvious violations of privacy are more menacing still.Civil RightsTwo former four star Marine generals denounce NDAA and urge a veto.IN his inaugural address, President Obama called on us to “reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.” We agree. Now, to protect both, he must veto the National Defense Authorization Act that Congress is expected to pass this week.NDAA is now law.Former FBI agent,All I Want for Christmas Is My Civil Liberties!Clinton’s “welfare reform” is now causing the disaster that progressives predicted at the time. The disaster did not happen right away, because there were plenty of jobs in the late 1990s.Internet/Net NeutralityNew law requires all restaurants in Malaysian city to provide Wi-FiCopyrightsPublic Domain Day: January 1, 2012 What is entering the public domain in the United States? Nothing. Once again, we will have nothing to celebrate this January 1st. Not a single published work is entering the public domain this year. Or next year, or the year after that. In fact, in the United States, no publication will enter the public domain until 2019. And wherever in the world you live, you will likely have to wait a very long time for anything to reach the public domain.Rick Falkvinge: It Is Time To Stop Pretending To Endorse The Copyright MonopolyI sometimes hear the old guard say that there would be no culture if there was no copyright monopoly. That is an outrageous insult to creators all over the world today. We create not because of a monopoly, but because of who we are; we have created and shared culture since we learned to put red paint on the inside of cave walls. … I reject and oppose this monopoly that was never for the creators, but always for the distributors: a guild whose time is up and obsolete, and which has no business trampling on our civil liberties. Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. Permalink Send this to a friend
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