Writing on Life» Writing on Life

Snuggle Truck Game Swaps Immigrants for Fluffy Animals

Mark Brown, Wired UK — Tue, 03 May 2011 21:11:00 +0000

After Smuggle Truck, a satirical game about immigration, gets banned from Apple's App Store, the developers tweak the gameplay and the title to something a little less controversial.

Eclipsed Sun Shows Mountains on Moon

Lisa Grossman — Tue, 03 May 2011 21:07:00 +0000

This new snapshot from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows mountains on the moon backlit by the sun's atmosphere.

An IP Address Does Not Point To a Person, Judge Rules

Soulskill — Tue, 03 May 2011 20:45:00 +0000

AffidavitDonda writes with this excerpt from Torrentfreak: "A possible landmark ruling in one of the mass-BitTorrent lawsuits in the US may spell the end of the 'pay-up-or-else-schemes' that have targeted over 100,000 Internet users in the last year. District Court Judge Harold Baker has denied a copyright holder the right to subpoena the ISPs of alleged copyright infringers, because an IP-address does not equal a person. Among other things, Judge Baker cited a recent child porn case where the US authorities raided the wrong people, because the real offenders were piggybacking on their Wi-Fi connections. Using this example, the judge claims that several of the defendants in VPR's case may have nothing to do with the alleged offense either. ... Baker concludes by saying that his Court is not supporting a 'fishing expedition' for subscribers' details if there is no evidence that it has jurisdiction over the defendants."

Planetary iPad App Turns Your Music Into a Universe

Mark Brown, Wired UK — Tue, 03 May 2011 20:45:00 +0000

New iPad app Planetary is a free, jaw-dropping visualizer that turns your tablet's audio library into an interactive cosmic database.