Disgruntled employee locks out users before getting canned

Classic case of nerd-knows-more-about-everything vs the manager who knows nothing and fails to heed technology warnings. Even so, you have to admit this is drastic measures, especially for a nerd. I mean sticking to what you believing is one thing, going to jail for those beliefs is another. I don’t know too many willing to go that far but Terry, I salute you.

“Terry Childs, a 43-year-old computer network administrator who lives in Pittsburg, has been charged with four counts of computer tampering and is scheduled to be arraigned today.

Prosecutors say Childs, who works in the Department of Technology at a base salary of just over $126,000, tampered with the city’s new FiberWAN (Wide Area Network), where records such as officials’ e-mails, city payroll files, confidential law enforcement documents and jail inmates’ bookings are stored.” (link)

Nokia “Symbian belong to us”

Nokia Corp. is buying the consortium that makes the software for its phones and making it available for free to other manufacturers, in hopes of blunting the influence of competing software providers.

Nokia said Tuesday that it is offering to buy the 52 per cent of Britain’s Symbian Ltd. that it doesn’t already own for about US$410 million. Symbian’s software is the most widely used on high-end phones.

Nokia will then establish a foundation with handset makers Sony Ericsson and Motorola Inc. and Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo to make the software available royalty-free. They will combine their three different versions of the Symbian software for advanced, data-enabled phones into one open platform. (link)

Game legislation, government wasting your tax money

Trying to pass legislation that impacts how games can be sold or what has to be put on them is a popular and expensive way of sending the message that you’re concerned about the issues that affect the youth of today. Although every law attempted has gone down in flames, and has cost taxpayers at least $1 million through the years, politicians continue to line up to give it a go. The newest bill is A11717, proposed by Assemblyman Joseph Lentol, and it has already passed through the New York State Assembly. Now it’s on to the State Senate. It’s a familiar story, but in this case the New York government is asking for things the industry is already doing.

The legislation would require game consoles to include parental locks for mature content but, while this sounds good on paper, every current-generation console already has parental controls. Not only that, but the ESRB has done a great job of getting the word out on how to use said controls. The bill also wants to force games to show their ESRB ratings on the cover of the title, which is also something that is done industry-wide. Every game sold at retail has the ESRB rating on the front cover, with more detailed information on what content the game includes on the back of the box. Given that industry compliance on showing the ratings on games is already at 100 percent, it’s unclear what the law would achieve. (link)

Nintendo thumbs nose at EU fine

Nintendo is refusing to pay a 149.1 million euro fine slapped on its for allegedly price fixing.

European Union regulators fined the gaming giant in 2002 following on from allegations that Nintendo, and seven distributors had colluded to raise hardware and software prices between 1991 and 1998.

They were found guilty as charged and one of the biggest ever fines in EU competitions history levied against Nintendo.

But now the games console maker is fighting the fine.

“The penalty was unfair, illegal, even shocking”, Ian Forrester, representing Nintendo, told the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg. (link)

Hollywood wins judgement against TorrentSpy

The six major Hollywood studios have won a US$111 million judgment for copyright infringement against the shut-down file-sharing website TorrentSpy.com.

The judgment, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, fined the operators of the website, Valence Media LLC, $30,000 per violation for nearly 3,700 illegal movie and TV show downloads. The Motion Picture Association of America said the judgment sends a strong message to copyright violators.

The site shut down in March, saying the legal climate was too hostile to continue. (link)

Apple, Sony settle exploding battery lawsuits

Apple Japan Inc. and Sony Corp. have agreed to jointly pay about Y1.3 million to settle a damages suit filed by a Japanese couple who argued that the husband had suffered burns after their Apple personal computer caught fire due to its Sony-made battery, judicial sources said, according to Kyodo News Agency.

The three parties reached the settlement at the Osaka District Court April 2, the sources said.

On Monday, both Sony (SNE) and the Japan unit of Apple Inc. (AAPL) of the U.S. declined to comment on the settlement.

In the lawsuit filed in July 2007, the couple sought around Y2 million in compensation, arguing the notebook computer caught fire while the wife was using it at their home in Osaka Prefecture in April 2006. (news)

EMC buys Iomega for $213 million

Data storage provider EMC Corp. said Tuesday it would acquire Iomega Corp. for $213 million, expanding EMC’s offerings targeting small businesses and consumers.

The price is a 20 percent increase over EMC’s initial bid of $178 million, or $3.25 per share. Iomega, a San Diego-based storage company best known for the Zip drive, had rejected that offer earlier this year, calling it inferior to a proposed all-stock transaction that Iomega had reached in December with a stockholder.

Hopkinton, Mass.-based EMC came back with a $3.75-per-share offer totaling $206 million. Further talks led to Tuesday’s all-cash agreement at $3.85 per share, which is 5.8 percent higher than Iomega’s Tuesday closing price of $3.64.

With Iomega’s acceptance of EMC’s bid, Iomega said it paid a termination fee of $7.5 million to the shareholders in the canceled deal. (link)