Science and Technology

Convicted federal Internet movie pirate found dead in his cell in Los Angeles. Russell William Sprague, 52, was the Chicago man who pleaded guilty in April to one count of copyright infringement for duplicating 134 screener movies originally sent to members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences …

In papers to be filed today, an artist’s group is backing file sharing service Grokster against the entertainment industry in a critical copyright case before the Supreme Court, scheduled to begin March 29. Background On December 10, 2004 the Supreme Court agreed to hear the entertainment industry’s case against two …

The ailing, 84 year-old Pope John Paul ll may not be doing much public speaking — ever — following a tracheotomy (a small opening cut into the neck and windpipe, with a breathing tube inserted into it so air can flow directly into the lungs) yesterday to alleviate a breathing …

In a fascinating, counterintuitive finding (for Americans, anyway), Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at the University of California in Berkeley, found that the British have much more expressive smiles than Americans: British smile by pulling our lips back and upwards and exposing our lower teeth, Americans are more likely simply …

What is the future of the newspaper? The Bad: the “evening paper” was killed off in the ’70s and ’80s. The circulation of morning papers has dropped annually since 1987, Sunday papers since 1990. For example, the Washington Post has seen average daily circulation drop from 779,898 to 709,500 in …

5,000 hours of White House conversations

As a city cyclist, one of the banes of my existence is ridiculously large vehicles, particularly 4WDs. (SUVs in American parlance.) Many of their drivers seem utterly unaware of the poor visibility of these hulks, or indeed even of their real size – near had my shoulder taken off by …

The the all-you-can-eat subscription model — most prominently pushed of late by Napster with their Napster to Go service (all you can rent for $15 a month) — is not yet catching on, according to market research firm Parks Associates: Respondents in the recent Parks Associates survey Global Digital Living …

As many of you know, we had a “perfect storm” meltdown yesterday which put us offline for about 5 hours in the late-morning and early-afternon: hard drive failure, then complete computer failure. The odds against these things happening successively are staggeringly high, but it shows you that if it CAN …

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored this year’s Oscar contenders at its annual Nominees Luncheon Feb.7 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. 115 nominees from 24 categories gathered at noon for the traditional pre-Academy Awards fete. The big news was the announcement that the awards show itself will …