Twitter claims Venezuela is blocking its images to stifle protests

[~Time Published February 15, 2014 at 01:26PM]

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Venezuela’s government has been trying to silence protests over shortages of basic goods, and that crackdown appears to be extending into the digital realm as well. A Twitter spokesperson tells Engadget and Bloomberg that pictures on its social network are “currently blocked” for at least some users. The country hasn’t confirmed anything, but President Nicolas Maduro has already taken a TV station off the air after it showed unflattering protest footage (pictured here); this may be just a continuation of his policy. Whatever is taking place, Twitter is encouraging Venezuelans to sign up for text message updates to keep the news flowing. And locals can take comfort in knowing that government attempts to censor online content aren’t always effective at crushing dissent — if there’s enough demand for political change, it can happen.

[Image credit: Eduardo Massieu / NTN24, Twitter]

Filed under: Internet

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Source: Twitter Spanish (translated), Bloomberg

The post Twitter claims Venezuela is blocking its images to stifle protests appeared first on AIVAnet.



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Amsterdam: huur door toerist mag

[~Time Published February 14, 2014 at 01:12AM]

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Amsterdammers mogen hun huis voor korte tijd verhuren aan toeristen. De gemeenteraad heeft ingestemd met regels voor deze particuliere vakantieverhuur. Door een recente uitspraak van de rechter was het verhuren via sites als het Amerikaanse Airbnb in veel gevallen verboden. Nu wordt het opnieuw toegestaan.

Het verhuren van particuliere woningen aan toeristen mag voortaan weer als het incidenteel gebeurt. De bewoner mag zijn huis voor maximaal twee maanden per jaar verhuren.

Een andere voorwaarde is dat de verhuurder toestemming moet hebben van de woningcorporatie of vereniging van eigenaren. Verder moet hij toeristenbelasting betalen, en mag de verhuur niet leiden tot onveiligheid, geluidsoverlast of andere klachten.

Short stay

De regels geven ruimte aan mensen die wat bij willen verdienen door hun huis in de vakantie te verhuren, terwijl ze het tegelijk mogelijk maken om illegale hotels aan te pakken.

De Amsterdamse gemeenteraad heeft verder besloten het aantal appartementen dat gebruikt mag worden voor short stay te bevriezen. Bij short stay worden appartementen niet gebruikt voor vaste bewoning, maar telkens voor kortere periodes verhuurd aan toeristen of zakenlieden.

Er zijn in Amsterdam zo'n 800 woningen voor short stay. De bestaande short-stayappartementen mogen blijven bestaan. Nieuwe mogen er alleen komen als andere verdwijnen.



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'Science' publisher is launching a free-to-read journal

[~Time Published February 13, 2014 at 12:28AM]

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One of the most prestigious scientific publishers is launching a new journal that will be open for everyone to read. Titled Science Advances, it will be the first open-access journal from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the nonprofit publisher behind Science — a journal generally considered to be among the very best in its field. The new publication will debut early next year and cover a broad scope of disciplines, and AAAS plans to broaden Science's scope as well to allow both journals to serve an increasingly broad audience.

Where the two journals will differ distinctly is their publication process. While both journals will make use of peer review and employ editors, Science will continue to publish...

Continue reading…



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Unfinished, unfair and brutally difficult: What developers should steal from DayZ

[Time Published January 02, 2014 at 08:52PM]

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Now available for $29.99, the open-world, standalone version of DayZ – based on the popular ARMA 2 mod with the same name – has sold over 172,000 in its first day of sales through both the official site and Steam.

Continue reading…

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[ Author: | Source: http://www.polygon.com/2014/1/2/5264192/dayz-early-access-lessons] | Image URL: http://cdn1.sbnation.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/26094023/ss_a220a37558d26ff3f8cf9f7420f441998dcdface.1920x1080.0_cinema_720.0.jpg] [IFTTTautoSHAREv1.002 | Shared with ifttt.com More shared news etc on: http://bit.ly/Schavuiten_blog ]

Why Microsoft didn't ditch the Xbox One's disc drive

[Time Published January 02, 2014 at 08:47PM]

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Microsoft considered creating a version of the Xbox One without a disc drive, head of Microsoft Studios Phil Spencer told the Official Xbox Magazine U.K.

Microsoft was still discussing the alternate version of the next-gen console as recently as mid-2013.

"Obviously, after the announcement and E3, there was some feedback about what people wanted to change," Spencer said. "There was a real discussion about whether we should have an optical disc drive in Xbox One or if we could get away with a purely disc-less console, but when you start looking at bandwidth and game size, it does create issues."

The Xbox One, like Sony's next-gen console, the PlayStation 4, allows users to download full retail games through its online store. The size...

Continue reading…

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[ Author: | Source: http://www.polygon.com/2014/1/2/5266176/xbox-one-disc-drive] | Image URL: http://cdn2.sbnation.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/26129365/img_2544.0_cinema_720.0.jpg] [IFTTTautoSHAREv1.002 | Shared with ifttt.com More shared news etc on: http://bit.ly/Schavuiten_blog ]

Ford testing plug-in hybrid that charges via rooftop solar panels

[Time Published January 02, 2014 at 08:47PM]

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Not shown: the giant lens that makes this all worthwhile.

Ford

The efficiency of solar panels and electric drivetrains has reached the point where the Sun can easily send cars across Australia. But fully solar-powered vehicles involve a lot of compromises in terms of performance, carrying capacity, and driver comfort. Such vehicles are not something you could use for your daily commute, while commuter cars simply don't have enough surface area to host the panels it would take to run them. But Ford has come up with some clever compromises that will let solar panels partially power one of its concept cars.

The design is based on its C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid, which has enough battery capacity to cut into its use of an internal combustion engine on shorter trips. The result is a car that the EPA rates at roughly 100MPG. To that, Ford has added an array of solar panels on the roof, enough to generate about 300W of power—nice, but not enough to fully recharge the car's batteries during the daytime.

To get there, Ford added an additional part: a canopy you park the car under. The roof of the canopy is a Fresnel lens, a compact, thin lens that can be manufactured out of inexpensive and light materials; in this case, Ford will use acrylics. The lens will focus light from a broad area onto the roof of the C-MAX Solar Energi, boosting the amount of power it generates.

Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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[ Author: | Source: http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/4R_Kwf_RqIU/] | Image URL: http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/cq5dam.web_.480.480.jpeg] [IFTTTautoSHAREv1.002 | Shared with ifttt.com More shared news etc on: http://bit.ly/Schavuiten_blog ]

Hear the sound of the Earth moving from the deepest hole on the planet

[Time Published January 01, 2014 at 05:47AM]

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For billions of years, the Earth has silently traveled through space, spinning around the sun without making a sound. Even here on the planet, there's been little to hear. But now with the right recording equipment and processing, we can get a sense of what it sounds like for the planet to spin and spin while looping around the sun. Artist Lotte Geeven has ventured into what she says is the deepest open hole in the world — a location on the border of the Czech Republic that drops down over 5.5 miles, according to Designboom — and recorded what she calls "The Sound of the Earth."

Continue reading…

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[ Author: | Source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/31/5260806/sound-of-the-earth-recording-lotte-geeven] | Image URL: http://cdn2.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/9622485/seis_large.png] [IFTTTautoSHAREv1.002 | Shared with ifttt.com More shared news etc on: http://bit.ly/Schavuiten_blog ]

How Can Somebody Who Loves Culture Possibly Defend The Copyright Monopoly?

[Author: ]

[Time Published November 23, 2013 at 03:14PM]

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One of the most perplexing accusations that are thrown at me and other copyright monopoly critics is that we “hate culture”. This is not just weird in a Westboro-Baptist-Church kind of way (“if you don’t subscribe to our dogma, you must hate our way of life, freedom, liberty, and fluffy kittens too”), but it is also completely at odds with reality.

It is precisely because I love culture, knowledge, and freedom of expression that I relentlessly criticize the copyright monopoly. It is the biggest inhibitor of creativity by a wide margin in today’s society, according to pretty much every single piece of research that wasn’t funded by the copyright industry itself.

Let’s focus on two areas today: availability of culture and compensation to artists.

In the first area, we can observe that there is more culture available than ever today, not because of the copyright monopoly, but despite it. People create like never before, despite the fact that it is often illegal to do so. Fortunately, most people-be-artists have a deep and healthy disrespect for this monopoly construct that would prevent them from making culture: 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. That’s 6,000 times more than realtime upload. That means people-be-artists are creating programming today for 6,000 worldwide TV channels that run 24-by-7, just for one video site. Most of it is illegal by today’s copyright monopolization.

But it gets worse. When you look at the culture available through the old system based on the copyright monopoly, you find that there’s a huge black hole in our culture heritage where it’s not interesting to publish culture that’s a few decades old. It’s only when the copyright monopoly expires that the culture becomes available again through new publications. There is a cultural black hole of the copyright monopoly that takes away upwards of 90% of our culture from the 1900s. This was clearest illustrated by Paul J. Heald who did research on the catalog of Amazon Books, and found that books that are 20 years old mostly aren’t available anymore, not until the copyright monopoly expires – 90% of our culture vanishes because of the copyright monopoly:

Image credit: Paul J. Heald / The Atlantic

Today’s system based on the copyright monopoly creates a black hole of culture that ensures 90% of modern culture dies and never becomes available again during a human lifetime. How can somebody who claims to love culture possibly defend that? This is a system that somebody who despises every form of culture would typically create: a monopoly that first makes it illegal to create, and which then makes sure 90% of culture dies and becomes unavailable in a few years.

The second objection to copyright monopoly reduction or abolition tends to be “how shall the artists get paid”. This objection is bordering on obscene coming from somebody who defends today’s order based on the copyright monopoly, where 99% of artists don’t get signed by a big publisher, and of those who do, less than 0.05% ever see any royalties. (These numbers come from the recording industry, but based on experience, it is safe to assume that book publishing see similar numbers.)

Today’s system based on the copyright monopoly ensures that 99.995% of struggling artists are never paid a cent. How can somebody who claims to love culture possibly defend that system?

What today’s system does, though, is to enrich the parasitic middlemen inherent in the system – the vested interests who fraudulently claim to “speak for artists”, but in reality, are robbing them blind (stories of how these parasitic middlemen publishers have been outright stealing the rest of the money from those last 0.005% of artists are almost an everyday occurrence).

So in summary, the copyright monopoly prohibits would-be-artists from making culture, it prevents art and culture from reaching the public, it isolates artists from their fans, it prevents artists from getting money for their art, and it ensures that 90% of modern culture dies a premature death. This construct can only be defended by people who claim to love culture if they are afflicted by a religious-grade denial of rational thought.

It’s time to take the bull by the horns and challenge the copyright monopolists on this core issue, whether they actually care for culture at all. The copyright monopoly kills culture and artistry, and that’s a known fact backed up by hard data.

About The Author

Rick Falkvinge is a regular columnist on TorrentFreak, sharing his thoughts every other week. He is the founder of the Swedish and first Pirate Party, a whisky aficionado, and a low-altitude motorcycle pilot. His blog at falkvinge.net focuses on information policy.

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Source: How Can Somebody Who Loves Culture Possibly Defend The Copyright Monopoly?

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[Source: http://torrentfreak.com/how-can-somebody-who-loves-culture-possibly-defend-the-copyright-monopoly-130929/] | Image URL: http://torrentfreak.com/images/book-editions.jpg]

Lebanon and Pakistan Receive IAEA imPACT Missions

[Author: ]

[Time Published December 19, 2013 at 01:43AM]

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Concluding an active year of imPACT Review Assessment missions in IAEA Member States, the IAEA Programme of Action for Cancer Therapy (PACT) conducted successive missions in Lebanon and Pakistan in late November and early December 2013.

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[Source: http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/2013/cancerlebanonpakistan.html] | Image URL: http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png]

Orbital-1 Mission Preps for Launch

[Author: ]

[Time Published December 17, 2013 at 07:24PM]

[ < - - Content ] An Orbital Science Corporation Antares rocket is seen on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2013 as it is rolled out to launch Pad-0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, VA. The Antares is scheduled to launch a Cygnus spacecraft on a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station on Thursday, Dec. 19 at 9:19 p.m. EST. The Orbital-1 mission is Orbital Sciences' first contracted cargo delivery flight to the space station for NASA. Among the cargo aboard Cygnus set to launch to the space station are science experiments, crew provisions, spare parts and other hardware. Weather permitting, it may be widely visible along the east coast of the United States. > Map of Orbital-1 Launch Viewing Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls [ - - > ]

[Source: http://www.nasa.gov/content/orbital-1-mission-preps-for-launch] | Image URL: http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png]

Universiteit Twente meldt doorbraak met kabels voor kernfusie

[Author: ]

[Time Published December 15, 2013 at 03:52PM]

[ < - - Content ] De Universiteit Twente heeft kabels ontwikkeld die veel minder opwarmen dan verwacht waardoor de supergeleiding intact blijft bij gebruik bij een kernfusie-energiecentrale. De verwachting is dat het Twentse systeem een wereldwijde standaard zal worden [ - - > ]



[Source: http://tweakers.net/nieuws/93193/universiteit-twente-meldt-doorbraak-met-kabels-voor-kernfusie.html] | Image URL: http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png]

Nieuw Amerikaanse licht aanvalsvliegtuig voltooit eerste vlucht

[Author: ]

[Time Published December 15, 2013 at 03:48PM]

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WICHITA - De nieuwe Textron-AirLand Scorpion heeft donderdag voor het eerst gevlogen. Het in het diepste geheim gebouwde tweemotorige straalvliegtuig wordt in de markt gezet om zowel de rol van strategische verkenner (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, ISR) als die van een licht aanvalsvliegtuig (Strike) te kunnen vervullen.

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[Source: http://www.luchtvaartnieuws.nl/nl-NL/Article.cms/Technologie/Nieuw_Amerikaanse_licht_aanvalsvliegtuig_voltooit_eerste_vlucht] | Image URL: http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png]

AMD kondigt Radeon R9 290 aan

[Author: ]

[Time Published November 05, 2013 at 10:45AM]

[ < - - Content ] AMD heeft de Radeon R9 290 aangekondigd. De videokaart beschikt net als het topmodel, R9 290X, over een 'Hawaii'-gpu, maar dan een met een lager aantal Compute Units en met lagere kloksnelheden dan de 290X. De R9 290 moet gaan concurreren met Nvidia's GTX 780. [ - - > ]



[Source: http://tweakers.net/nieuws/92388/amd-kondigt-radeon-r9-290-aan.html] | Image URL: http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png]

Western Digital raadt klanten af te updaten naar OS X Mavericks

[Author: ]

[Time Published November 02, 2013 at 12:56PM]

[ < - - Content ] Western Digital raadt klanten met Apple-computers af te updaten naar OS X Mavericks. De fabrikant van onder meer externe harde schijven heeft klachten in onderzoek dat de update problemen veroorzaakt in combinatie met software van de fabrikant. [ - - > ]



[Source: http://tweakers.net/nieuws/92351/western-digital-raadt-klanten-af-te-updaten-naar-os-x-mavericks.html] | Image URL: http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png]

Piraten Somalië verdienden 250 mln

[Author: ]

[Time Published November 02, 2013 at 04:55AM]

[ < - - Content ] Piraten die schepen kapen bij de Hoorn van Afrika en Somalië hebben sinds 2005 tussen de 250 en 300 miljoen euro aan losgeld verdiend. Dat geld is vervolgens weer gebruikt om andere criminele activiteiten te financieren, zoals mensensmokkel en drugshandel. Ook worden er milities mee onderhouden. [ - - > ]



[Source: http://nos.nl/tekst/569939-piraten-somalie-verdienden-250-mln.html] | Image URL: http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png]

GameStick review: the Android console battle is on

[Author: ]

[Time Published November 01, 2013 at 11:44PM]

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A successful Kickstarter-funded device is now shipping to retail stores and backers all over the world. Its upstart manufacturers are taking the growing world of Android gaming to the TV, with a new form factor and a price that undercuts virtually everything else on the market. But can it live up to the hype?

While the hypercompact GameStick won’t be shipping until November 8th, I could have easily copied and pasted that paragraph from a review six months ago, when we were getting our first look at the Ouya. It’s nearly impossible not to compare the two: along with Nvidia’s Project Shield, they’re the reason 2013 was declared “the year of the microconsole."

The Ouya’s launch, however, set the year of the microconsole off to...

Continue reading…

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[Source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/1/5046580/gamestick-review] | Image URL: http://cdn3.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/9213099/IMG_4430_large.jpg]

Forgotten-uitbreiding Age of Empires II HD gaat 10 dollar kosten

[Author: ]

[Time Published November 01, 2013 at 10:33PM]

[ < - - Content ] De uitbreiding The Forgotten, die op 7 november uitkomt voor Age of Empires II HD, gaat 9,99 dollar kosten, zo heeft ontwikkelaar bekendgemaakt. De nieuwe uitbreiding voor de hd-versie van het veertien jaar geleden uitgebrachte Age of Empires II is gebaseerd op een mod. [ - - > ]



[Source: http://tweakers.net/nieuws/92333/forgotten-uitbreiding-age-of-empires-ii-hd-gaat-10-dollar-kosten.html] | Image URL: http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png]

Ban Ki-moon bedankt Nederland

[Author: ]

[Time Published November 01, 2013 at 08:20PM]

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Secretaris-generaal Ban Ki-moon van de VN heeft Nederland bedankt voor de bijdrage aan de missie in Mali. "Ik ben de Nederlandse regering diep dankbaar dat ze ruim 360 militairen en vier helikopters inzet voor de missie. Dat is een grote steun voor de missie MINUSMA", zei Ban op een persconferentie.

Ban prees Nederland nadat hij had geklaagd dat er nog veel te weinig mankracht en materieel is voor de missie in Mali. MINUSMA heeft nog maar de helft van de 10.000 militairen die nodig zijn, zei de VN-chef.

Ban drong er bij de internationale gemeenschap op aan snel met een bijdrage te komen.

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[Source: http://nos.nl/artikel/569844-ban-kimoon-bedankt-nederland.html] | Image URL: http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png]

Recensie: Blood Ties

[Author: ]

[Time Published October 31, 2013 at 05:12AM]

[ < - - Content ] Clive Owen en de rest van de cast houden Canets langdradige familiesaga boeiend. [ - - > ]



[Source: http://www.filmtotaal.nl/recensie.php?id=33879] | Image URL: http://www.filmtotaal.nl/images/newscontent/zojeql0mjad5_85.jpg]

Recensie: Elle s'en Va

[Author: ]

[Time Published October 31, 2013 at 05:12AM]

[ < - - Content ] Voortkabbelende roadmovie met Catherine Deneuve als sprankelend middelpunt. [ - - > ]



[Source: http://www.filmtotaal.nl/recensie.php?id=33880] | Image URL: http://www.filmtotaal.nl/images/newscontent/m4via99fg8l5_85.jpg]