Nine Baud Tech News

After having originally having rolled out the infamous ‘iPod Law’ the French Constitutional Council has declared large parts of the new law are unconstitutional.

According to the report, the council has highlighted fundamental protections for intellectual property in such a way that it puts Apple’s iTunes music service at less risk to the new law.

In a 12-page legal finding release Thursday, the council “made frequent reference to the 1789 Declaration on Human Rights and concluded that the iPod law violated the constitutional protections of property.”

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

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Tags: French iPod Law, French Constitutional Council, iPod

The Mac web browser Safari is subject to a rather nasty denial of service vulnerability. There is currently no patch available for this “highly critical” vulnerability.

Description:
A vulnerability has been discovered in Safari, which potentially can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user’s system.

The vulnerability is caused due to an error in the “KHTMLParser::popOneBlock()” function. This can be exploited to cause a memory corruption via a script element in a div element redefining the document body.

Successful exploitation may allow execution of arbitrary code.

The vulnerability has been confirmed in version 2.0.4 (419.3). Other versions may also be affected.

In order to avoid the problem for the short term please disable javascript support. Also, you can always load up Firefox.

Link

Working out the bugs

This is a test of the bq

1, 2, 3

FINALLY! Skype now has support for video! I’ve been waiting for this for sometime now.

Now you can make video calls to anyone else on Skype, no matter what kind of computer they are using. Smile, wave, laugh or pull funny faces with anyone, anywhere in the world with Skype video calls. All for free of course.

The folks at Skype are quick to point out that this is a “preview” version. In other words they’re still working on it.

UPDATE: OK, well I’ve installed the new “Beta” version for Mac and I have some gripes. First off there is no way to accept and incoming call. WTF? The video portion works well on my MacBook but, the inability to accept a call is really useless. Also the skype no longer resides in the menu bar. Hopefully they will fix this shortly.

Download Link

Tags: Skype, Mac VoIP Client, Video Support, Skype for Mac

So, the summer heat has driven you half way to homicidal while you stare out your apartment window sizing up your options with the bell tower down the block. Well, you could always just cave in and buy an air conditioner. Consumer Reports.org has a work sheet that will help you determine the right type of AC for you.

This worksheet, adapted from a printed version published by the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers for the continental United States, can help you estimate how much cooling capacity you need. You’ll need a tape measure, scratch paper, and a pocket calculator.

Much more fun than spraying down the neighborhood with hot lead.

Link

Tags: Air Conditioner, Work Sheet, Consumer Reports

From Boing Boing:

Citing national security concerns, the federal government has sued Missouri officials for demanding that AT&T disclose whether it provided customer data for the government’s domestic surveillance program.

Link

Tags: AT&T, NSA, Evil Bastards, Spying

From Lifehacker:

By default, Mac OS X’s Finder keeps system files - which generally start with a dot, like .bash_profile - out of your sight.

But that makes editing one of these files extremely difficult if you, say, want to customize your Terminal prompt. To do so without firing up vim (if you don’t know, don’t ask), set Finder to show all hidden files. OS X FAQ has the details on how to do it.

Link

Tags: Mac OS X, Apple, Finder, Hidden Files, Command Line

Here is a very interest app for Mac OSX. MenuMeters is a set of monitoring tools for memory disk and CPU.

lthough there are numerous other programs which do the same thing, none had quite the feature set I was looking for. Most were windows that sat in a corner or on the desktop, which are inevitably obscured by document windows on a PowerBook’s small screen. Those monitors which used the menubar mostly used the NSStatusItem API, which has the annoying tendency to totally reorder my menubar on every login.

The MenuMeters monitors are true SystemUIServer plugins (also known as Menu Extras). This means they can be reordered using command-drag and remember their positions in the menubar across logins and restarts.

* MacOS X 10.2 or better
* Universal Binary

I’ve installed this on my MacBook. It’s handy but, I’m already beginning to tire of it. I’ll let it run for a spell.

Link

Tags: MenuMeters, Mac, OSX, Apple, Cool Tools

Here are a series of pics that resemble a first person shooter more than what they actually are. These are pictures of the Tokyo flood management system. Wild pics.

Thanks to Axel for this link!

Link

Tags: Tokyo, Flood Tunnels, Unreal Tournament, Wild

AT&T is about to release a satellite TV box for home users.

The box, called AT&T Homezone, will be initially available in Ohio and San Antonio to new customers of the cobranded AT&T-Dish Network satellite TV service. It will cost $9.99 a month in addition to Internet and satellite service fees.

AT&T plans to expand the service area in coming months, positioning Homezone as an alternative for those who can’t yet receive its premier service, U-Verse, which transmits video over phone lines.

There’s no word on whether or not this box will send your viewing history to the NSA or if the good folks at Narus will be able to intercept it

Link

Tags: AT&T, NSA, Narus, Satellite TV, Homezone