Archive for the ‘media’ Category
Once again: Do cell phones cause brain tumors?
August 26th, 2009 | 
Author: A collaborative of international electromagnetic radiation (EMR) watchdogs, including Powerwatch and the EMR Policy Institute, sent a paper to government leaders and media Tuesday detailing several design flaws in a major but oft-delayed telecom-funded Interphone study.
Now consumers get to wonder yet again whether the message behind the paper, “Cellphones and Brain Tumors: 15 Reasons for Concern, Science, Spin and the Truth Behind Interphone,” is legitimate or the result of overzealous conspiracy theorists.
The paper’s main conclusions are: There is a “significant” risk of brain tumors from cell phone use; EMR exposure limits that have been used by governments and supported by industry are based on the false premise that EMR has no biological effects except for heating; and design flaws of the Interphone study including selection bias, insufficient latency time to expect a tumor diagnosis, unrealistic definition of what makes a “regular” cell phone user, exclusion of children and young adults from the study, exclusion of many types of brain tumors, and exclusion of people who had died or were too ill to be interviewed as the result of brain tumors.
Read the full report here (PDF), as well as CNET’s cell phone radiation level chart (a few Motorola models top the list, with several Samsungs coming in lowest).
Source :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-10318075-247.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Posted in cell phone, Communication, Google, Health, media, Tech | 
Tags: brain tumors, cell phone, Health | 
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Goosegrade now lets anyone copyedit any blog
Crowd-sourced copy editing service Goosegrade took its tool in an interesting direction on Tuesday, allowing anyone to leave a suggested edit on blogs that do not even have the Goosegrade plug-in installed.
The new system works via bookmarklet instead, letting users leave a quick correction that’s sent back to Goosegrade’s site. There, the owner of the site in question can check on all the recommended edits and do them manually, or simply install Goosegrade’s plug-in for blogs, which lets them approve and implement the edits one at a time right inside their blogging software.
Got an edit? Make it on any site with Goosegrade.
(Credit: CNET)
What makes the new approach really neat is that other users who have saved the bookmarklet can see pending edits made by other users, along with a history of past changes–although this doesn’t show up with any kind of notification when first viewing an article. This makes for a good solution for sites who choose not to adopt Goosegrade’s system, wherein previous edits would go completely unseen.
Source :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-10317716-248.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Chris Brown sentenced to 5 years probation in Rihanna assault
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) — Pop singer Chris Brown was sentenced Tuesday to serve five years probation and more than 1,400 hours in “labor-oriented service” for assaulting his pop star girlfriend, Rihanna.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg said in the sentencing she wants to see Brown conduct “actual physical labor, as opposed to some type of community service.”
The sentencing was delayed earlier this month because documents detailing Brown’s proposed community service plan in Virginia, where he maintains a legal residence and wants to serve his sentence, had not arrived in time for Schnegg to review them.
Brown’s probation will be overseen by the state of California, the judge said.
He must also complete domestic violence counseling.
Source :
Posted in Entertainment, media, Music |
Tags: Chris Brown, domestic violence, Music, Rihanna |
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U.K. government eyes sanctions for file sharers
The U.K. government has made new proposals that would see Internet users disconnected if they are suspected of illicit file-sharing.
The proposals (PDF) were announced on Tuesday by Lord Mandelson’s Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). They arrive in the middle of the department’s own public consultation on legislation on the misuse of peer-to-peer (P2P) technology, which is scheduled to end in September.
“Our thinking on the process supporting the objectives and the obligations [of the consultation] has developed, and we thought it would be helpful to share these thoughts with stakeholders at this point, so that they can take them into account when responding to the consultation,” the government said in a statement.
The new proposals make two major additions to the initial plans. The first is a new sanction against illicit file sharers, which calls on the ISP to suspend the suspected subscriber’s account. Lord Carter discounted this measure as unnecessarily harsh in his Digital Britain report, which kicked off the P2P consultation in June. However, the government now says it is “considering the case for adding suspension of accounts into the list of measures that could be imposed.”
Full Story :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10317001-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Source :
CNETNews U.K. government eyes sanctions for file sharers http://bit.ly/60lhp
Posted in Government, Internet, media, movies, Music, U.K., video |
Tags: Government, the internet, U.K. |
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Photoshop.com adds video hosting, group albums to repertoire
(Credit: Screenshot by Lori Grunin/CNET, photos by Lori Grunin, Michael Ricca/CNET)Photoshop.com may be Flash-y and Air-y with photo-editing capabilities, but it surprisingly still seems to lag sites like Flickr and Facebook when it comes to various sharing features. For instance, only this week has Adobe launched video-hosting and group album capabilities (available for free accounts as well as paid), long available from its competitors.
There are some done-it-better aspects, however. For example, Adobe allows for larger videos: a maximum of 2GB vs. Flickr’s 150GB/90 seconds. Of course, the more large videos you upload the closer it will push you to the 2GB storage maximum of a free account. As it’s taking forever (it’s up to about an hour and still hasn’t completed) to process my short 177MB video, however–everything gets transcoded to Flash video–I shudder to think how long a 2GB file would take.
There are still a few UI kinks to work out as well. If you e-mail an invite to someone at an e-mail address other than the one connected to their Adobe ID, there’s no way to link the addresses or even allow the person to reply to you with the correct address.
People you invite as Collaborators to Group Albums aren’t automatically added as your friends. And while it notifies you via e-mail of updates to the album there don’t seem to be other notification options, like posting Twitter, Facebook, or even an RSS feed. (Concurrently with the rollout, Adobe updated Photoshop.com’s terms of service. There doesn’t seem to be anything objectionable in the new terms. Yay!)
You can see how Photoshop.com’s editing capabilities stack up against the competition in 15 online photo editors compared.
Source :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10314843-1.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
