vRRitti.com, providing sentiency

The Amazon.com exile of the e-book Spots the Space Marine finally ended last Friday, after being removed from the online distributor for nearly two months thanks to a trademark infringement claim from Games Workshop over the term “space marine.” The takedown inspired controversy and vocal support for the book’s author from online commentators like Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi, who noted that space marines have been around a rather long time in sci-fi media, as well as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which worked with author MCA Hogarth to get her e-book reinstated.

But does that mean that Hogarth’s trouble is over, that the book should never have been taken down, or that we should all feel free to write books about space marines once more? The legal answers remain unclear.

More:
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/02/space-marine-copyright/

http://rt.com/news/afghanistan-obama-twitter-secrecy-385/

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/06/the_21st_centurys_augmented_revolution/

The newest round of arrests follows 175 people who were taken into custody by police last Sunday around the same 1 a.m. time period.

http://www.inquisitr.com/153285/chicago-police-arrest-130-occupy-chicago-protesters/

-

-

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/10/verizon-sues-to-halt-fccs-net-neutrality-rules.ars

“I think what is probably potentially transformative about this movement is the fact that they did not locate this on Washington,” he said. “It was not Occupy DC, it was Occupy Wall Street which I think shows the idea that the people are looking past the political theater that is taking place in Washington towards the real axis of political power which is located in the  heart of the American empire on Wall Street and in the finance capital, not where the politicians are wrangling about austerity measures and that sort of thing.

“I think people are becoming more and more aware through the Ron Paul presidential campaign and other means that are travelling through the society right now that the real heart of the empire is in the finances and that is something that makes this political movement somewhat different and sets it apart,” Corbett added.

http://rt.com/news/us-wall-street-protests-873/

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110913/02265515925/german-court-says-isp-not-responsible-users-who-infringe.shtml

http://www.londonrioters.co.uk/

However, due to the government’s failure to black-out the text in all versions of the document (and leaving the PDF version open to exploitation) we can now reveal the contents of a censored paragraph.

In it, Universal CEO Lucian Grainge begins by talking about a deal his company struck with Virgin Media.

http://torrentfreak.com/censorship-fail-reveals-big-music-isp-spying-plan-110801/

“Our Government has already injected an additional £650 million to help improve our national infrastructure and protect against cybercrime,” he commented, “but the very nature of this threat calls for more than a national response.”

He continued: “By forging new relationships between businesses, governments and law enforcement officers all over the world, by investing in new training, and by building an international exchange of expertise, the ICSPA is forming a network powerful enough and wide enough, to face down cybercrime.”

http://www.inspiresme.co.uk/news/general/new-agency-to-tackle-cyber-crime-04178/

ICSPA plans to train and accredit law enforcement personnel from various countries to fight online crime. In addition, the group plans to share information collected about cyber-criminals, and work closely with Europol, which investigates organized crime and terrorism.
http://www.mobiledia.com/news/96976.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jul/18/david-cameron-hamstrung-compromised-position

A broader discussion I had with my Microsoft contact and several others was whether mobile users will stay with Apps or move to Browsing. Apps make sense for tasks. If you know where you want to go, or what you want to buy, apps are great today. Furthermore, people are creatures of habit. The more they get used to apps, especially fanatically loyal Apple iPhone users, the more it becomes ingrained by a larger-and-larger user base. So, while intuitively it makes sense to browse the web on your smart phone, just like you do on a laptop or PC, this transition to browsing may take longer than expected. Two factors that may accelerate the adoption of browsing on smart phones are 1) the pace of improvement in smart phone operating systems that improve the browsing experience, and 2) Apple’s proprietary ecosystem, which together could drive users toward browser-based Google and Microsoft operating systems

More: http://seekingalpha.com/article/253765-takeaways-from-mobile-world-congress-in-barcelona

Obama takes a leap of faith and trusts the government to the cloud

More: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/datacenter/obama-takes-a-leap-of-faith-and-trusts-the-government-to-the-cloud/707

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110127/04365912856/hadopi-wants-to-kick-people-offline-watching-unauthorized-streams-as-well.shtml

KC ( Karoo ), the incumbent telecoms operator and broadband ISP for Hull and East Riding (Yorkshire, UK), has informed us that general internet traffic over the recent Christmas 2010 weekend was actually “noticeably lower” than earlier weekends. However use of internet TV and video systems, such as the BBC iPlayer service, was up by about a third compared to last Christmas 2009.

More: http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2011/01/01/isp-kc-uk-experiences-christmas-broadband-video-streaming-usage-surge.html

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101108/00275411752/is-your-privacy-harmed-if-you-believe-others-may-have-seen-private-info-even-if-they-haven-t.shtml

http://gizmodo.com/5667592/feds-to-telecoms-stop-upgrading-so-we-can-wiretap-more-easily

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101018/01100611459/bsa-sends-ridiculously-bogus-letter-to-european-commission.shtml

 Thomas O’Toole points us to a report of an Ohio state senator who has proposed a bill that would allow repeat offenders the ability to “delete their record” from public view, which (stunningly) might also require newspapers to remove all old articles about their arrests and convictions.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100901/12400010860.shtml

For Mark Russell, the vice president of engineering, technology, and mission assurance at defense giant Raytheon, engineering is not just his profession–it’s also the lifeblood of the company.

It seems pretty obvious that engineering would be important at a company that makes just about every imaginable kind of defense system. But this important? At Raytheon, more than 40,000 of the total 75,000 employees are engineers, and the company is hiring thousands more each year.

And one of the key ideas at Raytheon is using existing technologies and applying them to non-traditional businesses.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20012451-52.html

Previously:

Google, Motorola and HTC have been working along side Raytheon, markers of the Patriot missile defense system, to develop software which could allow a soldier on the battlefield to gain important information via an Android OS device.  According to Raytheon, Google has helped push the limits of the phone and integrate features such as detailed satellite imagery, unmanned drone video and even tap into the Patriot missile system itself

http://www.androidpolice.com/2010/07/21/google-helping-u-s-army-to-launch-missiles-from-their-phones/