A range of measures to strengthen and modernize environmental regulation in Northern Ireland have been announced following the launch of a new Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA). The body, which will replace the former Environment and Heritage

he Scottish Link Pipe Band are the only Full Pipe Band in Brazil. They have also competed 3 times in the Worlds Pipe band Championships held in Glasgow every year. All are WELCOME to attend the practices:Dates:-July - Sunday 6th.July Sunday 13th.July

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BANGKOK - THAILAND’s Supreme Court has denied ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra permission to travel to China and Britain as his first corruption case is set to go to trial, an official said on Thursday. Mr Thaksin was required to surrender his passport

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If youâ??re looking for sun, sand, seaâ?¦.and sets, Kenmare in County Kerry is the place to be from Sunday 13th to Sunday 20th of July. Why? Because Kenmare is the venue for the Munster Fleadh Cheoil 2008â?¦â?¦â?¦Eight days of

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BERLIN The likeness of the Nazi leader, hunched over a desk in a dimly lit bunker just before he committed suicide at the end of World War II, was one of dozens unveiled Thursday at the opening of the British wax museum’s latest branch. The waxworks here

A Manhattan district judge gave Google some partial victories this week in its copyright-infringement battle with Viacom over YouTube. Last year, Viacom sued Google and its YouTube site for $1 billion for what it called unauthorized use of video clips from Viacom properties.

In Wednesday’s decision, Judge Louis L. Stanton granted a protective order to Google so it doesn’t have to turn over its search source code as Viacom requested. Viacom argued it wanted to show that Google did not have copyright filters, but Google countered — successfully, at this round — that the code is a trade secret. The search code is used both on YouTube.com and on Google’s main search engine.

Needs ‘Plausible’ Showing

In his decision, the judge said Google and YouTube “should not be made to place this vital asset in hazard merely to allay speculation.” He added that a “plausible” showing that Google/YouTube’s denials were false and that the search function “can and has been used to discriminate infringing content” should be required before “so valuable and vulnerable an asset is compelled.”

The judge said there was no evidence that the search engine can separate clips that violate someone else’s copyright, such as Viacom’s, and those that do not. He did leave open that there may be other ways to filter infringing clips.

Stanton also turned down Viacom’s request for Google to deliver its electronic-index data for its advertising and video-content databases, or for the source code of YouTube’s video-identification tool. The video ID program enables holders of copyright material to provide YouTube with samples, so infringements can be tracked down on the site.

One aspect of Viacom’s case has been that YouTube does not merely share video content that users upload, but that the site copies the uploaded content onto its servers and makes that content available via its search…

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are suing the Department of Justice to obtain official records concerning the U.S. government’s possible use of cell-phone-tracking technology to spy on individuals without first obtaining a court order based on probable cause.

In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the civil-liberties groups said the DOJ failed to provide an adequate and timely response to a records request filed last year under the Freedom of Information Act.

“This is a critical opportunity to shed much-needed light on possibly unconstitutional government surveillance techniques,” said Catherine Crump, the ACLU lead attorney. “Signing up for cell-phone services should not be synonymous with signing up to be spied on and tracked by the government.”

Complying With Current Law

At least some U.S. attorneys may have violated a DOJ “internal recommendation” that “federal prosecutors seek warrants based on probable cause to obtain precise location data in private areas,” according to a Washington Post article published last November. Moreover, the ACLU said other media reports have raised the possibility that law-enforcement officers may have obtained tracking data directly from the nation’s mobile carriers without any court involvement.

Due to the limited amount of information currently available about the government’s tracking practices, the ACLU said it believes the lack of information on the issue raises serious questions about whether the government is complying with current law and the U.S. Constitution.

“The government’s policies and practices for monitoring the locations of mobile phones are unclear,” the ACLU noted in its original records request. “It is not even apparent whether the government routinely obtains mobile-phone location information without any court supervision whatsoever.”

Information pertaining to the DOJ’s procedures for obtaining real-time tracking information is vital to the public’s understanding of the privacy risks of carrying a mobile…

Openmoko has taken the wraps off its Neo FreeRunner, a Linux-based smartphone based on the company’s open mobile-computing platform. Before you yawn about reading yet another product-introduction story — especially about a handset that lacks 3G capability — what sets the Neo FreeRunner apart is that it really is open, literally and figuratively.

The company’s black, oval-shaped smartphones are built for users to actually open. For example, buyers will be able to take the unit’s casing apart to get at the electronic circuitry. Openmoko says it will even supply the tools to make opening the device a snap.

And the handset’s flexible development platform will allow designers to create Linux-based mobile applications for specialized markets, Taiwan-based Openmoko said. The goal is to empower developers and consumers alike to personalize their devices, much like a PC.

Under the Hood

Measuring 4.75 x 2.44 x 0.73 inches and tipping the scales at 6.5 oz, the Neo Freerunner sports a 2.8-inch touchscreen with a display resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. Underneath the hood, the handset integrates chips for connecting tirelessly with functions and services compatible with the Bluetooth 2.0, GPS and Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g) standards.

The handset uses a 400-MHz ARM9 processor, 128MB of WSDRAM and 256MB of NAND Flash memory. Though there is no camera, the smartphone has two three-axis motion sensors and a microSD expansion-card slot.

The Neo FreeRunner is a tri-band GSM device that comes in 850/1800/1900-MHz and 900/1800/1900-MHz forms. To find out which Neo to buy, Openmoko suggests that prospective buyers first determine the GSM bands supported in their home markets.

Customization Options

On the software side, the new handset can dial numbers, send and receive SMS text, and record personalized contact information. Openmoko expects to supplement these with downloads, beginning with the release next month of a software suite that will include…

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesian students have low interest in pursuing studies in the Netherlands so that they needed to be encouraged further, Marrik Bellen, director of the Dutch Educational Assistance Office (NESO), said here on Thursday. Bellen

LONDON: For the second time in just over two weeks, a suspect alleged to have strong ties to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida was set free on bail, British officials said Thursday. The release of a 45-year-old Algerian identified only as ‘U’ after more than