Europe 'will not accept' three-strikes in global treaty

The European Commission has pledged to make sure the Acta global treaty will not force countries to disconnect people for unlawfully downloading copyrighted music, movies and other material.
The assurance from the office of the trade commissioner, Karel De Gucht (pictured), is the strongest statement on Acta (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) to emerge from the new Commission since it took office earlier in February.
"We are not supporting and will not accept that an eventual Acta agreement creates an obligation to disconnect people from the internet because of illegal downloads," John Clancy, De Gucht's spokesman, told ZDNet Asia's sister site ZDNet UK last week.
Read more of "Europe 'will not accept' three strikes in Acta treaty" at ZDNet UK.

READ MORE - Europe 'will not accept' three-strikes in global treaty

Pentagon OKs social media access

The U.S. Defense Department has made its peace with social media.
Long skittish about forums such as Facebook and Twitter, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) says that it is now OK with social-networking services and other interactive Web 2.0 applications. A memorandum released last week makes it official policy that the agency's nonclassified network will be configured to provide access to Internet-based capabilities across all Defense components, including the various combat branches.
That's not to say that the Pentagon is embracing all of the free-wheeling nature of blogs, tweets and online video. Soldiers, sailors and airmen will still be expected to refrain from activities that could compromise military actions or undercut readiness.
"Commanders at all levels and heads of DoD components will continue to defend against malicious activity on military information networks, deny access to prohibited content sites (e.g., gambling, pornography, hate-crime related activities), and take immediate and commensurate actions, as required, to safeguard missions (e.g., temporarily limiting access to the Internet to preserve operations security or to address bandwidth constraints)," the Defense Department said in a news release.
The Pentagon says it recognizes that social networks, among other Web capabilities, are useful tools for interaction both within the Defense Department and between the agency and the general public. It is also satisfied with the balance it has struck between network security and use of Internet-based tools.
And it also acknowledges that an either/or decision between security and information sharing is impractical.
"If you look at either one individually, you will fail," said David M. Wennergren, deputy assistant secretary of defense for information management and technology. "You will have great security, but no ability to access information sharing. [Or] if you think only about sharing, you will run into issues of operational security and letting bad things into your system. So you can no longer think of them as two separate subjects."
The military has been using social-networking tools for some time, but policies have not always been consistent across the branches, and officials over time have wavered on how much they were willing to let individuals engage with the likes of blogs, YouTube, Facebook, and the like.
"Facebook is heartened by today's decision to begin to allow our nation's men and women in uniform and civilian employees across the Department of Defense responsible access to social media, which plays an important role in people's daily lives," Facebook said in a statement.

READ MORE - Pentagon OKs social media access

End draws near for Windows XP SP2 support

Some of Microsoft's older operating systems will soon take another step towards the end of their lifecycles.
Businesses using Windows XP will need to upgrade to Service Pack 3 (SP3) of the operating system by July in order to continue receiving support from Microsoft.
Although XP is currently in its extended support phase, which runs until April 2014, users will need to be using a supported service pack to be eligible for this. The cutoff for XP SP2 support is 13 July 2010, while support for XP SP1 ended in October 2006. XP users will need to install SP3 through the Windows Update online service. Those not using XP SP2 will need to install this before downloading SP3.
Read more of "XP and Windows 2000: Time running out on support" at Silicon.com.

READ MORE - End draws near for Windows XP SP2 support

US suit accuses Sony, LG, others of price fixing

Major optical disc drive (ODD) players including Hitachi, LG, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba, have been accused of price fixing by a U.S. electronics retailer, which has filed suit against the companies, according to various reports.
East Haven, Conn.-based Prisco Electric Company last week initiated an antitrust suit with the Californian Northern District Court against the Japanese and Korean makers, alleging the vendors colluded since October 2005 to "fix, raise, maintain and stabilize the price of optical disc drive products sold in the United States", V3.co.uk said in its report.
"These defendants have a long history of engaging in anticompetitive conduct, such as Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), Thin Film Transistor Liquid Crystal Display (TFT-LCD) and Cathode Ray Tube (CRT)," Prisco added in the filing.
The retailer also claimed the disc-drive makers tapped trade organization forums to meet and negotiate agreements to keep prices of CD, DVD and Blu-ray drives used in products such as Sony's PlayStation 3 and PCs, artificially high, reported Computerworld.
"When the price of ODD began to dip, the defendants entered into an illegal agreement to prevent competitors from entering into the market and to keep prices at a supra-competitive level," Prisco noted in the suit.
According to the filing, the defendants own over 90 percent market share of the U.S. ODD market, which is worth billions of dollars a year.
The Computerworld report added that Prisco was looking for triple damages, as well as an injunction against the companies involved to stop future price fixing activities. The retailer, however, did not give a specific amount.
In a lawsuit, triple or treble damages is a term used to denote the plaintiff's request for the court to award triple the amount of actual damages incurred.
In October 2009, the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division issued a subpoena to Sony subsidiary, Sony Optiarc America, as part of its investigation into anticompetitive practices in the optical disc drive market.

READ MORE - US suit accuses Sony, LG, others of price fixing