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kadal writes:

The debate about net neutrality in India has been heating up as the suspiciously tight April 24 deadline nears for comments on a consultation paper released on March 27 by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the country's telecom regulator. As detailed in this article, things began last Christmas.

On December 25, 2014, Airtel, the country's largest mobile operator with over 200 million active subscribers, dropped a bombshell: it wanted to charge customers extra for using services like Skype, Viber and Google Hangouts even though they had already paid for Internet access. If customers wanted to use a service that used Internet data to make voice calls — something known as VoIP — they would need to subscribe to an additional VoIP pack, the company said. Airtel was double-dipping and customers were furious. The tweets flew thick and fast. In less than four days, Airtel backtracked on its plans. It would wait, it said, for a consultation paper about net neutrality that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) would publish soon.

Once that consultation paper came out, Airtel then decided to adopt the Internet.org approach by creating 'Airtel Zero':

[Continued after the break.]

Hugh Pickens writes:

Justin Gillis writes in the NYT that as drought strikes California, residents "can't help but notice the substantial reservoir of untapped water lapping at their shores — 187 quintillion gallons of it, more or less, shimmering invitingly in the sun."

Once dismissed as too expensive and harmful to the environment, desalination is getting a second look. [...] A $1 billion desalination plant to supply booming San Diego County is under construction and due to open as early as November, providing a major test of whether California cities will be able to resort to the ocean to solve their water woes. [...] "It was not an easy decision to build this plant," says Mark Weston, chairman of the agency that supplies water to towns in San Diego County. "But it is turning out to be a spectacular choice. What we thought was on the expensive side 10 years ago is now affordable."

Carlsbad's product will sell for around $2,000 per acre-foot (the amount used by two five-person U.S. households per year), which is 80 percent more than what the county pays for treated water from outside the area. Water bills already average about $75 a month and the new plant will drive them up by $5 or so to secure a new supply equal to about 7 or 8 percent of the county's water consumption.

Critics say the plant will use a huge amount of electricity, increasing the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming, which further strains water supplies. And local environmental groups, which have fought the plant, fear a substantial impact on sea life. "There is just a lot more that can be done on both the conservation side and the water-recycling side before you get to [desalination]," says Rick Wilson, coastal management coordinator with the environmental group Surfrider Foundation. "We feel, in a lot of cases, that we haven't really explored all of those options."

takyon writes:

The construction of the 18-story, $1.4 billion Thirty-Meter Telescope atop the Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii has been temporarily halted due to protests.

The campaign has garnered celebrity support and participants across the world:

Supporters of the project point out that there are already 13 telescopes built within that conservation zone. But none are as large as the latest planned structure, dubbed the Thirty-Meter Telescope, which would require the destruction of five acres of land.

The Honolulu-born Game of Thrones star Jason Momoa posted pictures on Instagram and Twitter using the hashtag #WeAreMaunaKea, That and the hashtag #ProtectMaunaKea have seen big jumps in use this week. San Francisco Giants' pitcher Madison Bumgarner, Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger and Momoa's on-screen spouse, Emilia Clarke, and real-life partner, Lisa Bonet, also got involved.

Momoa's Instagram account is currently dedicated to the issue with a link to an online petition pasted as his status. The Instagram account @ProtectMaunakea also hosts pictures of hundreds of people who have posted signs in support of the conservation efforts. Organisers protested off social media as well by holding a worldwide sign waving with participants from Hawaii, Alaska, New York City, Las Vegas, Kentucky, Arizona, Tahiti and Tonga.

The Thirty-Meter Telecope's web site also has coverage.

Jeremiah Cornelius writes:

With the now-commonplace revelation of US mass-data gathering and surveillance, there is still a fundamental gap in the mainstream media and news outlets containing factual description of these programs. Since the release of documents by Edward Snowden, the shorthand "NSA" is tossed about with little comprehension or context. At the EmptyWheel blog, Marcy Wheeler has done an invaluable service by collating and cataloging "A Guide to the 5+ Known Intelligence Community Telecommunications Metadata Dragnets".

Explaining in detail what is known to be collected in five or more programs, by four or five agencies in separate domestic and international operations is something that resists a soundbite. This concise presentation of the known mass surveillance programs is the most accessible to date.

"gewg_" writes:

The Center for American Progress reports

On [April 8], L.A. mayor Eric Garcetti released an ambitious plan that puts environmental, economic, and equality issues front and center in helping determine the trajectory of the city, which plans to add another half-million residents by 2035.

[...]A few of the plan's highlights include: becoming "the first big city in the nation to achieve zero waste" by 2025, fully divesting from coal-powered electricity by 2025, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, having zero smog days by 2025, and making it so that 50 percent of all trips taken by city residents are by bike, foot, or public transportation by 2035. The plan also makes commitments to reduce energy use in all buildings by 30 percent by 2035.

[...]The plan calls for a reduction of the urban heat island effect differential--the difference between the temperature of the city and the surrounding area--by 1.7°F by 2025 and 3°F by 2035.

[...]20 percent of L.A. is covered in rooftops and 40 percent in pavement of some form. Changing the reflective capacity of these areas and adding more greenspace will play a big role in reducing the heat island effect. [Executive director of the L.A.-based Climate Resolve and a former commissioner at the L.A. Department of Water and Power, Jonathan Parfrey] and other city officials have already been pushing for these changes. In December 2013, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed a building code update requiring all new and refurbished homes to have cool roofs--which use sunlight-reflecting materials--making L.A. the first major city to require such a measure.

[...]The city's new sustainability plans calls for 10,000 of these cool roofs to be in place by 2017.

The full plan spans 108 pages, covering everything from reducing potable water use by 10 percent in city parks to ensuring that 50 percent of the city's light-duty vehicle purchases are electric vehicles by 2025. With the drought in full swing and no reason to believe that prayers for rain will bring lasting results, the city is hoping to reduce overall municipal water use by 25 percent by 2025 and 30 percent by 2030.

We had two Soylents send us news of a new tactic in state-sponsored attempts at silencing undesired content on the internet:

China Is Said to Use Powerful New Weapon to Censor Internet.

AnonTechie writes:

Late last month, China began flooding American websites with a barrage of Internet traffic in an apparent effort to take out services that allow China’s Internet users to view websites otherwise blocked in the country.

Initial security reports suggested that China had crippled the services by exploiting its own Internet filter — known as the Great Firewall — to redirect overwhelming amounts of traffic to its targets. Now, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Toronto say China did not use the Great Firewall after all, but rather a powerful new weapon that they are calling the Great Cannon.

The Great Cannon, the researchers said in a report published Friday ( https://citizenlab.org/2015/04/chinas-great-cannon/ ), allows China to intercept foreign web traffic as it flows to Chinese websites, inject malicious code and re-purpose the traffic as Beijing sees fit.

The system was used, they said, to intercept web and advertising traffic intended for Baidu — China’s biggest search engine company — and fire it at GitHub, a popular site for programmers, and GreatFire.org, a nonprofit that runs mirror images of sites that are blocked inside China. The attacks against the services continued on Thursday, the researchers said, even though both sites appeared to be operating normally.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/11/technology/china-is-said-to-use-powerful-new-weapon-to-censor-internet.html

[Continued after the break.]

tonyPick writes:

Ars Technica reports that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has succeeded in invalidating a patent held by Personal Audio LLC, which was claimed to cover podcasting:

The EFF has taken up various tactics to fight against "patent trolls," but its fight against the Personal Audio patent was the first time it crowd-funded a patent challenge. The non-profit asked the public to help it raise $30,000 to file the inter partes review. The campaign touched a nerve, and in short order the EFF collected more than $80,000.

Personal Audio gave up on getting royalties from podcasters in 2014 after a lawsuit against comedian Adam Carolla almost went to trial. Carolla, who has one of the most popular podcasts, rallied his listeners after he was sued by Personal Audio and spoke out against "patent trolls" in Congress. He raised more than $500,000 from his fans, but ultimately settled with the company.

[...] However, the company pushed ahead against television studios, believing that its patent covered "episodic content" that included online video. It took its case against CBS to trial and won $1.3 million.

The EFF v. Personal Audio LLC site has case documents and further details, and there is additional coverage and comment at HackerNews and Techdirt.

From EFF's press release:

"We have a lot to celebrate here," said EFF Staff Attorney Vera Ranieri. "But unfortunately, our work to protect podcasting is not done. Personal Audio continues to seek patents related to podcasting. We will continue to fight for podcasters, and we hope the Patent Office does not give them any more weapons to shake down small podcasters."

Hugh Pickens writes:

Matthew Fisher reports that to support part of its claim to about 85 per cent of the South China Sea, Beijing is building artificial islands on tiny outcroppings, atolls and reefs in hotly disputed waters in the Spratly Archipelago.

Tons of sand, rocks, coral cuttings, and concrete are transforming miniscule Chinese-occupied outcroppings into sizable islands with harbors, large multi-story buildings, airstrips, and other government facilities. Adm. Harry Harris Jr., commander of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific fleet, dubbed Beijing’s island-building project in the South China Sea “a great wall of sand" and says China has created “over four square kilometers of artificial land mass,” adding there were serious questions about Beijing’s intentions. The scale of China's construction in the Spratly Islands is clear in new satellite images. "What's really stunning in these images, every time you see a new set of images come out, is just the speed and scale at which this work is occurring," says Mira Rapp-Hooper.

A spokeswoman for China’s Foreign Ministry insists the islands are being built to give ships a haven in the typhoon heavy region. “We are building shelters, aids for navigation, search and rescue as well as marine meteorological forecasting services, fishery services and other administrative services” for both China and its neighbors, the spokeswoman said, according to Reuters, though no one was buying that explanation.

anubi writes:

Ars Technica has an interesting tidbit today about one of our more hotly discussed topics here... whether or not "abandonware" should continue to receive copyright protection — Entertainment Publishers fight to block third-party revival of “abandoned” game servers

This article concerns the trade industry response to a brief filed by the EFF last November.

A major game industry trade group is fighting back against a proposed DMCA exemption that seeks to give gamers the right to modify games with abandoned online servers in order to restore online gameplay and functionality. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), with support (.pdf) from the Motion Picture Association of America and Recording Industry Association of America, argues that the proposed exemption would amount to "enabling—and indeed encouraging—the play of pirated games and the unlawful reproduction and distribution of infringing content."

[...] The US Copyright Office will be holding public hearings [PDF] on the proposed DMCA exemptions May 19 through 21 in Washington DC and Los Angeles. The final round of written comments on the rule will be closed on May 1.

My own thoughts on this is likely our payment systems are just as unworkable as copyright law. Mechanisms are now in place to take our money, give us something, then abandon it, yet prohibit us from using it. Maybe its high time we consider a "Millennium Digital Currency Act" for payments so when the vendors want to abandon the service, the money transfers back to to the buyer, and the copyrights transfer back to the seller.

edinlinux writes:

From an article in Computerworld:

Ten U.S. senators, representing the political spectrum, are seeking a federal investigation into displacement of IT workers by H-1B-using contractors.

They are asking the U.S. Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security and the Labor Department to investigate the use of the H-1B program "to replace large numbers of American workers" at Southern California Edison (SCE) and other employers.

Rather than all of us just griping on Soylent and 'that other site' about H-1B tech workers flooding in while there are plenty of Americans looking for work, these IT workers had a union, and got the attention of 10 senators to look into this issue. Southern California Edison laid off a bunch of American IT workers to replace them with H-1B Indians, and their union (since they are a utility, they happened to have had one), came to the rescue with a huge media campaign and now investigations by US Senators.

sudo rm -rf writes:

In a recent press release Amnesty International reports:

[Editor's Note: The quoted text is reproduced here exactly as it appeared in the original. For those who may not be familiar, there are apparently three different parties involved: (1) Amnesty International, (2) Liberty, and (3) Privacy International.]

Hugh Pickens writes:

Anthony D'Ambrosio writes at USA Today that marriage seems like a pretty simple concept — fall in love and share your life together. Our great-grandparents did it, our grandparents followed suit, and for many of us, our parents did it as well. So why is marriage so difficult for the millennial generation?

"You want to know why your grandmother and grandfather just celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary? Because they weren't scrolling through Instagram worrying about what John ate for dinner. They weren't on Facebook criticizing others. They weren't on vacation sending Snapchats to their friends." According to D'Ambrosio, we've developed relationships with things, not each other. "Ninety-five percent of the personal conversations you have on a daily basis occur through some type of technology. We've removed human emotion from our relationships, and we've replaced it colorful bubbles," writes D'Ambrosio. "We've forgotten how to communicate yet expect healthy marriages. How is it possible to grow and mature together if we barely speak?"

D'Ambrosio writes that another factor is that our desire for attention outweighs our desire to be loved and that social media has given everyone an opportunity to be famous. "Attention you couldn't dream of getting unless you were celebrity is now a selfie away. Post a picture, and thousands of strangers will like it. Wear less clothing, and guess what? More likes," writes D'Ambrosio.

"If you want to love someone, stop seeking attention from everyone because you'll never be satisfied with the attention from one person." Finally D'Ambrosio says the loss of privacy has contributed to the demise of marriage. "We've invited strangers into our homes and brought them on dates with us. We've shown them our wardrobe, drove with them in our cars, and we even showed them our bathing suits," writes D'Ambrosio. "The world we live in today has put roadblocks in the way of getting there and living a happy life with someone. Some things are in our control, and unfortunately, others are not."

sudo rm -rf writes:

In an article published on arXiv.org [Full article available] California-based Raytheon engineers Ulvi Yurtsever and Steven Wilkinson say that any interstellar spacecraft traveling at near-light speed would leave distinct light signatures in its wake.

AnonTechie writes:

A recent Wired article tells us about the progression of the Amazon product recommendation algorithm.

Amazon helped show the world how machines can learn. As far back as the late ’90s, the company’s online retail site would track every book, CD, and movie you purchased. As time went on, it would develop a pretty good sense of what you liked, serving up product recommendations its code predicted would catch your eye.

It wasn't rocket science. It was an algorithm. But it worked. And in the years since, the field of so-called machine learning has evolved in enormous ways, with the likes of Google, Facebook, and Microsoft training enormous networks of machines to identify faces in photos, recognize the spoken word, and instantly translate conversations from one language to another.

On Thursday, Amazon unveiled a similar machine learning service, pitching it as a way for any business to use the AI tech the company has spent years developing inside its own operation. Known as the Amazon Machine Learning Service, it’s designed for software developers “with no experience in machine learning,” AWS head Andy Jassy said on stage at a mini-conference in San Francisco.

anubi writes:

I guess we have all seen all those wonderful toys coming from China. Technologies unimaginable a few years ago, like quadricopters and microminiature concealed cameras. It looks like the US Military is taking notice.

Other countries (such as China) build our stuff, understand how it works, and have found out how to make it very inexpensively. A remote-controlled drone was once the exclusive domain of law enforcement... now just about anyone who wants one can buy one.

Yup, it looks like the-powers-that-be are realizing their cats are getting out of the bag...