Indian Copyright Act may be amended soon, DRM may become legally breakable

A recent bill introduced by the Union Government seeks to amend the Copyright Act of 1957, attempting to bring Indian copyright laws at par with the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)’s treaties, and give creative contributors to copyrighted material more rights. The Copyright Amendment Bill 2010, if ratified, will greatly affect the music, film, and photography industries of India.

Importantly, the amendment also proposes that private & personal copying will be treated as 'fair dealing'. This interestingly allows users to break DRM (digital rights management) on their legally purchased content, as long as they are not violating copyright terms. This will allow them to move and use the content on various devices. Amazingly, this provision will also allow developers to make and sell tools to break DRM protection.

These are the other major changes:

1. Independent authorship rights for lyricists, composers, and singers in films, which presently belong only to the producer and music company for the film.
2. Addressing concerns of music companies for not being able to derive royalties from “version recordings” of their original songs
3. Producer and principal director will be treated as joint first-owners of the copyright, which at present only belong to the producer
4. Change in the term of copyright for photographers from 60 years to “life plus 60 years”
5. Allow physically challenged persons to access the copyright material in specialized formats
6. Proposes to make the Copyright Act conform to WIPO’s Internet treaties of anti-circumvention, giving equal rights to both online and offline work.
7. Statutory/compulsory licensing for broadcasting companies to be allowed to access written, audio, and video works.

As expected, the changes proposed have been met by strong opposition and disgruntlement, mainly from music companies, who claim that the Indian film and music industry cannot be compared to any other in the world, and will have to have different laws. Even those who stand to gain by the new provisions are sceptical if the amendment will ever be passed, as many of the changes run counter to the manner in which the Indian industry has worked for many decades, and some changes, such as individual rights for lyricists and composers cannot be found elsewhere in the world.

The ‘fair dealing’ provision on personal copying of DRM-protected content in India, if ratified, will make a lot of Indians very happy, as well as make a lot of people across the world very envious of them. Here’s to the Copyright Amendment Bill 2010 getting passed!

Microsoft launches Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4

Microsoft has launched the full-release general availability versions of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4, with a host of new features for developers. To fully-inaugurate their flaghsip developer products, Microsoft will be holding more than 150 developer events across the globe. Users will have access to many popular extensions for both Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4, made by over 50 partners and available at the time of the release.

Visual Studio 2010 has the all new Visual Studio editor, which will use Windows Presentation Foundation, support ribbon interface, multiple monitors, Windows 7 multitouch, SharePoint functionality, Windows Azure tools, and IntelliTrace, a new product that will help eradicate nonreproducible bugs. It will also come bundled with Expression Studio, Business & Enterprise Servers, and Microsoft Office in the Ultimate and Premium SKUs

The .NET Framework will also feature built-in support for industry standards, for high-performance middle-tier applications (including parallel programming, workflow, and service-oriented applications), and ASP.NET Model-View-Controller, and will also feature Dynamic Language Runtime. Developers can also enjoy a side-by-side installation with .NET Framework 3.5, and get the advantage of a runtime that has been decreased in size by 80%, making it entirely faster.

Microsoft will also launch the Release to Web version of Silverlight 4 sometime today, which will include more than 60 customizable pre-written controls, extended out-of-browser capabilities, and enterprise application enhancements.

Visual Studio 2010 is available in 4 SKUs:
Ultimate with MSDN - $11,924 New or $3,841 Renewal
Premium with MSDN - $5,469 New or $2,299 Renewal
Professional with MSDN - $1,199 New or $799 Renewal
Professional with MSDN - $1,199 New or $799 Renewal
Here's what the products will offer:

VS 2010	Features	MSDN Premium Benefits	Additional Software
Ultimate	IntelliTrace Historical Debugging Comprehensive Testing Tools Test Case and Test Lab Management Advanced UML Architecture Tools Architectural Discovery Tools Unit Testing with Code Coverage and Test Prioritization Code Analysis, Metrics and Optimization Database Development and Testing Tools	250 hours Azure Usage TFS License (1 CAL) 4 Support Incidents	Windows OS & Servers XNA Game Studio Expression Studio Office SQL Server Business & Enterprise Servers
Premium	Advanced Application Development & Debugging Unit Testing with Code Coverage and Test Prioritization Code Analysis, Metrics & Optimization Database Development and Testing Tools Read Only Architectural Diagrams	100 hours Azure Usage TFS License (1 CAL) 4 Support Incidents	Windows OS & Servers XNA Game Studio Expression Studio Office SQL Server Business & Enterprise Servers
Professional	Application Development & Debugging Unit Testing	50 hours Azure Usage TFS License (1 CAL) 2 Support Incidents	Windows Client and Server OS SQL Server XNA Game Studio

The testing as well as promos were out,now it just the new full body embodiment!!

Scientists have created bacteria-based artificial life...Nearly???

According to me, say nearly because they have created the 'software' part, which is no mean feat, considering it took nearly 15 years for them to do it. But is the hardware far behind?

Although we have evolved almost beyond recognition from our single-celled beginnings, the question of how life started has troubled scientists for a long time now. As typical scientific methodology prescribes, scientists are trying to find the answer to this big question by making efforts to generate life in the laboratory - life from lifeless chemicals. Genetic engineering is the manipulation of the genetic structure, DNA make-up, or genome of a living being, which is like the 'source-code' of the organism, present in every cell, determining everything about him/her/it. Although generating living cells from chemicals isn't possible as of now, we have been tinkering with the chemicals that make up the DNA to create artificial genomes.

Now, a scientific team - headed by Drs. Craig Venter, Hamilton Smith and Clyde Hutchison of the J. Craig Venter Institute, USA - has created the first artificial bacterium by transplanting an artificially-created genome into a naturally occuring host cell. Or in a rough analogy, the operating system has been created, but is loaded in borrowed hardware. In 2008, the JCVI team synthesized a small bacterial genome; however they were unable to activate that genome in a cell at that time - the Beta version of the OS crashed. This time, however, the cell has 'booted up' and created over a billion copies of itself, which contained and displayed the characteristics of the synthetic DNA. This is the first cell controlled completely by a synthetic genome. The genome, known as Mycoplasma mycoides, is also a work of leviathanic proportions. It contains 1.08 million base pairs (like 1.08 million lines of code) and is the largest chemically defined structure ever synthesized in the laboratory. But to say at this point, that 'Artificial life has been created', would not be very accurate, as in this case, a synthetic genome was inserted into old microplasma cells, and that is not the same as 'creating life', for truly new life wouldn't require an existing living recipient cell.

Assembly of Mycoplasma mycoides (click to enlarge)

The new technique can allow us to create brand new genomes that do just what we demand of them. They could produce bio-fuels for us, gulp up the excess carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere or clear an oil-spill, like the one that has crippled the shores of Louisiana. But as Dr Helen Wallace from Genewatch UK - an organisation that monitors developments in genetic technologies - puts it, "If you release new organisms into the environment, you can do more harm than good. By releasing them into areas of pollution, [with the aim of cleaning it up], you could actually be releasing a new kind of pollution because we don't know how these organisms will behave in the environment."

Though we are now writing the software of life, we'd have to also look out for bugs and loopholes. If there's a crash, the damage might not be reversible through a Quick Format.

Quantum Communication goes super-secure

Quantum particles, i.e. small sub-atomic particles like photons, are the carriers of information in Quantum Communication, where the 'quantum state' of the particle determines whether you are sending a 0 or a 1. While encrypting Quantum messages was already possible, researcher Robert Malaney, has further made Quantum Communication super-secure. The University of New South Wales' telecommunications researcher has developed a technique called 'unconditional location verification', where the location of the recipient of information is fixed. The protocol proposes to send an encrypted key to three wireless towers closest to the recipient, who is then required to decrypt and send back the information instantaneously. The location of the recipient is then determined using knowledge of transmission speeds, and further communication takes place only if the recipient is at the desired location. So, even if someone has mastered the decryption of all your classified information, he'd probably need to have the audacity of standing in your vicinity to do it.

The security that this technique provides would be desirable for organisations like banks, intelligence agencies, digital media distributors etc., who need point-to-point communication. This, for example, will ensure that the encryption technique of your bank transactions are further strengthened by cross checking your location of access, which in this case might be your home address, which is registered with the bank.

Windows 8 plans leaked, sound awesome; Windows Store to be Microsoft's App Store

In the last few months, leaked pictures and documents become have become a daily affair for us.

However, this one made us sit straight and notice - leaked footprints for Windows 8. Seriously, we haven’t yet poured even half our love over the awesome Windows 7, before this thing hit us square this morning. Like all leaks, only time shall confirm the authenticity of these numerous leaked slides. But the detail and the obvious directions they point to, give them a lot of weight.

These slides, each labelled confidential, probably were used for some behind-the-doors presentation and contain tremendous detail and some very mouth-watering prospects. For the eager eyes, here lies the list and our views.

Kinect-style sensing: When Microsoft put so much effort behind the creation of the wonder that is Kinect (earlier known as ‘Project Natal’), we expected (and wished in our dreams!) that the technology would be ported to the Windows too. There is ‘no’ sign of motion gestures for operating Windows, or any mention of motion-based gaming, but the slides show the plans of motion-detection to put Windows to ‘sleep’ or ‘wake’ it up. Yes, as the slides above indicate, plans are that user’s entry or exit would be used to log-in or put the computer to sleep. This would also mark the introduction of sensor support, like proximity sensors, to Windows. Neat, but we want more of Kinect!
  

Quick on/off: Booting times are irritating, we know! They may soon, however, be a thing of the past as Microsoft plans to introduce a feature, dubbed as ‘Log off+Hibernate’, that would enable quick powering up from 0 watts consumption. This also is in line with the “Big stuff” that ‘ This is an absolute necessity, considering that Windows 8 is as much for handhelds (which needs always-on operating system) as it is for desktops. More on ‘Windows 8 and handhelds’, read on.

Windows Store: It’s a trend Apple started and now everyone wants to have an App store. But we suppose that Windows is a platform which needs this the most. Here’s our view: Rivals have always thrown dirt on Microsoft for the vulnerability and the security loopholes in its operating system. App store not only give Microsoft a huge source of revenue but also a point of centralised vigilance. As one of the slides suggests, developers would be able to upload the app to be available in only certain geographical areas, and also decide the type of devices it would be available for. The concept pictures show an all-encompassing vision, especially the 'developer's dashboard' above, which would be additional lure for them, if billions of users of Windows aren't. We just can’t seem to stress enough how much difference this would make. Instead of unreliable software from around the net, finally, we can have reliable, checked Apps. The largest of platforms might be the last to get its App store, but take our word, it would dwarf all others around.

Dell hid the fact that it deliberately shipped 11.8 million potentially faulty computers between 2003 and 2005

Possibly the biggest news of the month, Dell has admitted to some very shady behaviour. A company not known for its squeaky clean record, Dell’s troubles this time around are centred on recently unsealed court papers, which contained a mighty revelation within them: Dell knowingly shipped 11.8 million Optiplex PCs that were potentially defective due to a faulty capacitor, between May 2003 and June 2005.

The capacitors, mostly manufactured by Nichicon, showed a 97% failure rate in a study conducted soon after the first problems started showing up. So what did Dell do? They didn’t recall the series, but instead, told their representatives to hide the problem, and then went on to continue shipping the PCs, and tell customers that the problem was caused by them overworking the system! A way to enjoy service fees? Possibly. More likely a way to get away from the bad publicity. However, the very same unsealed court papers also reveal that in 2005, Dell apparently paid out a $300 million fine to various companies, including Advanced Internet Technologies, who was the main plaintiff in the matter.