A group of former FDA scientists who spoke out against the agency's allegedly flawed device-approval process are suing the feds for intercepting Gmail and Yahoo Mail messages by installing spy programs on their work computers. Although the computers were owned by the government, the plaintiffs say they were explicitly granted the right to use them for personal purposes. Back in January 2009, nine scientists known as the "FDA Nine" anonymously wrote to the leader of then President-elect Barack Obama's transition team "pleading with him to restructure the agency," the Wall Street Journal reported at the time[......]
Apple updated iBooks Author to version 1.0.1 on Friday afternoon, the only change being an update to the software's controversial end user license agreement. The updated EULA now specifically only applies distribution restrictions to the interactive .ibooks format files generated by the app. [......]
When it comes to information privacy concerns, Facebook already has a bullseye on its back. That won't change now that Facebook is going public in its highly anticipated Initial Public Offering (IPO). But disclosure rules affecting publicly traded companies may force Facebook to reveal privacy-related investigations that it otherwise might have kept secret[......]
Facebook is hoping investors will "like" the social network just as much as its users already do. Following a series of rumors that have multiplied in recent weeks, Facebook filed for Initial Public Offering (IPO) on Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission at a value of $5 billion. [......]
Not this again... Given easy access to the Internet, the source of so much information, one might expect that Internet activists would be the best informed on the facts[......]
The Swedish lawsuit against four of The Pirate Bay's previous administrators concluded today as the country's Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal . Jail sentences and fines against the group now become final[......]
Yesterday, after almost no debate, the Indiana State Senate approved a bill that would allow its schools to teach the origin stories of various religions when a class touches on the origin of life. It now moves on to the state's House, where one of its cosponsors is currently the Speaker of the House. Although the bill as written could be used to create a comparative religion class, its sponsor, Senator Dennis Kruse, has made it clear that he hopes to see it foster the teaching of creationism in science classes[......]
Megaupload's US servers won't be wiped for at least two more weeks. Read More: CNet , Ars Technica Read the comments on this post [......]
Big Content strikes back after a week of anti-SOPA protests, getting the US government to take down Megaupload and its bizarre founder, Kim Dotcom. Megaupload dominated the news in the week after the takedown, but our top stories in tech also include in depths look at how Amazon and Google handle "big data" and $25 Linux box that "outperforms the iPhone 4S GPU." As an eleventh story bonus, we feature the word "wombat" in a headline[......]
A tank like this one from Rusbal's Rusdecoy line sat on the front lawn of Dotcom Mansion Flight risks, firearms charges and an inflatable tank are just some of the latest wrinkles in the bizzare case of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom . After his arrest, Dotcom's mansion received delivery of a full-size inflatable replica of a Russian T-72 tank , which is now parked in front of the "Dotcom Mansion" and is busy infuriating the upscale neighbors. The T-72 "Threat Decoy" is similar to those used by the military for field training and intelligence deception, manufactured by companies such as Inflatable Images in the US and Russia's Rusbal ; each sells for thousands of dollars[......]
Motorola's own patent war against Apple rages on, as the company has filed a new lawsuit in the US targeting Apple's iPhone 4S and iCloud service. Motorola's new lawsuit, filed in the US District Court of Southern Florida, asserts six patents against the iPhone 4S, with four of those same patents asserted against iCloud[......]
A federal judge has ruled that a Colorado woman can be compelled to decrypt her encrypted laptop so that the police can inspect it for incriminating evidence. The woman, Ramona Fricosu, is a defendant in a mortgage scam case. She had argued that the Fifth Amednment's privilege against self-incrimination protected her from having to disclose the password to her hard drive, which was encrypted using PGP Desktop[......]
An ACU student uses an iPad in class, part of the school's "Connected" mobile learning initiative. On Thursday morning, Apple announced a series of related initiatives designed to modernize learning based around its iPad tablet[......]
The number of high-quality services that "compete with free" is growing—and some of the credit is certainly due to the major content conglomerates, which have made it easier to license and use their digital material. As a recent subscriber to Rdio, it's hard for me to imagine anyone who would even want to go to the hassle of pirating music when 13 million tracks are ready to be dialed up in instant, high-quality streams, complete with album art. [......]
