Finland makes it illegal to circumvent DRM technologies

The Finnish parliament has passed new copyright laws that make it illegal to circumvent digital rights management technologies. The legislation even outlaws making copies of protected content for your own use and although the country's government said that it will not enforce the law at that level, there is nothing to prevent the music and movie industries from doing so, although the government has asked them not to prosecute individuals making copies for their own use. Copy-protection mechanisms are increasingly prevalent on big-name CD releases, preventing music from being ripped to a PC or MP3 player. ...more

Foundations laid for UK digital rights body

NTK-founder and sometime MacUser columnist Danny O'Brien is leading a campaign to establish a digital rights organisation in the UK. In the US, the Electronic Freedom Frontier (EFF) has achieved a high profile for campaigning against restrictive DRM, defending file sharers against the record labels and 'bloggers' accused by Apple of leaking trade secrets. O'Brien's Oblomovka blog is asking for monetary pledges - 1,000 people are needed to give a fiver each month up to Christmas - to get an organisation up-and-running. ...more

Palm becomes palmOne

Palm, the world's leading PDA maker, is to take a new name. It will be renaming itself palmOne when it finally spins off its Palm OS operating system business as PalmSource later this year. palmOne will comprise the company's three hardware lines - Zire, Tungsten and, when the acquisition of Handspring is completed, Treo - and its software business. ...more

Google launches AdWords over the airwaves

Google is bringing its AdWords programme to digital radio listeners in the states, offering a new radio ad distribution channel for Google advertisers. The search giant has announced an agreement with XM Satellite Radio - a satellite radio service in the States, with 7 million listeners - to open up advertising slots on non-music channels. The automated system, which has undergone months of trialling, is designed to provide targeted messages to the listeners. ...more

SGI allies with Intel for Linux-based NASA supercomputer

NASA has turned to Silicon Graphics and Intel to build what is described as one of the world's largest Linux-based supercomputers. Built on a total of 10,240 Intel Itanium 2 processors, the Space Exploration Simulator will consist of 20 512-processor SGI Altix systems. And there will be 500-terabytes of data storage. ...more