Fresh Off White House Petition Success, Activists Launch Copyright Reform Campaign

Grassroots digital activists are looking for a new another sweet, sweet hit of political success. After successfully lobbying the White House with 100,000 petitions to overturn a law related to cell phone carrier choice, fiery young activist Sina Khanifar is demanding broader copyright reform. And, this time, he’s bringing friends: FixTheDMCA.org brings together a host of influential digital activist organizations, such as consumer watchdog group, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, and popular content aggregator, Reddit.com, to make aggressive changes to section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Originally “passed by Congress to protect music labels and the movie industry from piracy, Section 1201 is now being used to prevent Americans from making fair use of the things we buy,” writes the new grassroots hub of the movement, with tools to get friends involved and contact legislators. The DMCA has long served as an evil totem for open-information hawks, who support greater permission for tinkering and data access, at the expense of tools that could prevent piracy. Most disturbing, says the group, it oddly gives the Library of Congress authority to determine exemptions for consumer copyright issues. Recently, section 1201 of the DMCA was interpreted by the Library of Congress to ban users from “unlocking” their cell phones to switch between carriers. In the past, it’s been used to go after academic researchers, such as Princeton Computer Science Professor, Edward Felton, who cracked an audio security technology for preventing piracy. Felton, who was responding to a public challenge to explore its vulnerabilities, was threatened by industry groups to cease his presentations. The winds of change seem to be at the backs of the audition activists. Changing the DMCA means going to political war with well-funded industry groups that care more about preventing piracy than broad information-sharing. But, if the success of the White House petition is any indication, nerds have come to power in very high places, and may not be swayed by lobbyists.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/etfkmeiQyBw/

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Facebook's plan for West Campus to be reviewed Monday by Menlo Park planners

Facebook's plan to build a second campus on the west side of Bayfront Expressway moves to the Menlo Park Planning Commission on Monday.

The social network company has asked the city to rezone its 22-acre West Campus site because the building height there is now limited to 35 feet.

The 43,555-square-foot office and rooftop park that Facebook wants to build above a surface-level parking lot would reach a height of 73 feet, according to city documents. The building has been designed by celebrated architect Frank Gehry.

The commission also will consider approving an official statement that the development's benefits would outweigh its negative environmental impacts. According to a city memo, one significant and unavoidable impact could be additional traffic at the intersections of Marsh and Middlefield roads and University Avenue and Donohoe Street. Construction noise is another potential impact.

In addition, the commission is to consider allowing removal of 175 heritage trees and approving Facebook's agreement to provide either $4.5 million in fees to the city for affordable housing or put up 15 affordable housing units elsewhere, or a combination of both.

In January, the city council approved a development agreement for the West Campus project that calls for Facebook to pay Menlo Park $1.5 million over 10 years and $100,000 for local improvements, and to restrict the number of vehicles entering and leaving the new campus. Facebook

also has committed to pay the city at least $194,000 a year in property taxes.

The West Campus, previously occupied by Tyco Electronics at 312 and 313 Constitution Drive, would be given the new address of 1 Facebook Way. About 2,900 employees will work there, according to project documents.

The new building will be linked to the main campus -- the former headquarters of Sun Microsystems -- via a tunnel underneath Bayfront Expressway. The main campus has been permitted to accommodate as many as 6,600 employees.

The planning commission will meet in the council chambers, 701 Laurel St., at 7 p.m.

Email Bonnie Eslinger at beslinger@dailynewsgroup.com; follow her at twitter.com/bonnieeslinger.

This is a layout sketch of Facebook's West Campus in Menlo Park, which will be designed by famous architect Frank Gehry. Facebook announced on Friday, Aug. 24, 2012, that Gehry would design the social networking giant?s new building. The quarter-mile long building will be about 10 acres in size, a have a rooftop garden, one large room with parking underneath, and hold about 3,400 engineers. Photo courtesy of Facebook. (Photo courtesy of Facebook.)

Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_22651629/facebooks-plan-west-campus-be-reviewed-monday-by?source=rss

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Microchip implant lets blind patients see shapes, skip the prosthetic

An eye-implanted chip from Retina Implant has restored patients' ability to discern light during its latest trial, according to German researchers. The device works in a similar fashion to the newly FDA-approved Argus II retinal prosthesis to return limited vision in patients with photoreceptor cell diseases like retinitis pigmentosa. Unlike that system, however, light is picked up via 1,500 pixels on a retinal implant instead of an eyeglass-mounted camera. The signal is boosted by a coil implanted in skin behind the ear and sent back to so-called bipolar cells still active on the retina, which in turn send an image to the brain through regular neural circuits. A small battery mounted behind the ear -- the only external sign of the device -- contains controls for brightness and contrast. The recent trial let 8 out of 9 patients see in varying degrees, with three in the study even able to read letters and see the faces of family members. Given that the Argus II finally crossed the FDA's bionic eye barrier, hopefully we won't have to wait nearly as long for research like this to become a product.

Filed under: Wearables, Alt

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Via: MIT Technology Review

Source: Royal B Society

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/22/microchip-implant-lets-blind-patients-see-light/

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Congrats to Sean Rossi who became the NCAA Division III record holder in assists...

Men's Basketball Team Returns to E8 Title Game with 70-63 Victory Over Fisher

bombers.ithaca.edu

HOBOKEN, N.J. ? The second-seeded Ithaca College men?s basketball team (18-8) will return to the Empire 8 Championship Tournament title game after defeating third-seeded St. John Fisher (17-9), 70-63, on Friday at top-seeded Stevens Institute of Technology. Senior Sean Rossi became the N...

Source: http://www.facebook.com/ICAthletics/posts/376939829080620

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Engadget Podcast 332 - 02.22.13

Before you ask... no, we haven't actually seen the PlayStation 4, and we might not actually know what it's going to look like. But, you can bet we've got some actual details on what has to be the the hottest announcement this week. Unless you're a fan of HTC. Or Chromebooks.

Hosts: Brian Heater, Ben Gilbert

Producer: James Trew

Hear the podcast

Filed under: Podcasts

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/22/engadget-podcast-332-02-22-13/

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ASUS Transformer Book Windows 8 hybrid goes up for pre-order

Despite being announced long before the budget-minded VivoTab Smart, ASUS' higher-end Windows 8 laptop / tablet hybrid known as the Transformer Book has yet to make its way to store shelves -- or receive official pricing, for that matter. Nonetheless, those intent on throwing one of the machines into their satchel can snag the Transformer Book on pre-order, which is available through MacMall for $1,479.99. The 13.3-inch system sports a 1,920 x 1,080 display, and in this particular configuration, you'll fetch a dual-core 1.9GHz Core i7-3517U CPU with Intel HD Graphics 4000, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive that's augmented by a 128GB SSD. This price includes the keyboard dock, but it's worth reiterating that you might pay more than necessary to snag the system on pre-order. If you're on the fence, be sure to revisit our hands-on from last summer's Computex.

Filed under: Laptops, Tablets, ASUS

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Via: ZDNet, Ultrabook News, Liliputing

Source: MacMall

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/21/asus-transformer-book-preorder/

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Source: http://truecouponing.com/2013/02/muscle-fitness-magazine-1-year-subscription-3-99-today-221-only/

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