20
October
2006
|
00:54 AM
America/Los_Angeles
Friday Newswatch: YouTube pulls vids, PC work causes cancer, Vista security spat
- Snarling and sniping erupted into a full-blown spat today as Microsoft and McAfee are getting into it over when MS is going to deliver Vista code security vendors need for their products. Microsoft is claiming that McAfee and Symantec don't need access to Vista's kernel because Vista so much better protects the kernel. Yesterday, Redmond promised to provide more complete APIs to the security companies. But McAfee was disappointed, saying there was "little indication that Microsoft intends to live up to its promises made last week." Today, Microsoft returned fire: "inaccurate and inflammatory statements." (The Register)
- How bad for your health is building computers? Bad. Here's categorical proof. IBM turned over 31,000 health records of manufacturing work to an epidemiologist at Boston University School of Public Health. As published in Environmental Health, the results are a much higher incidence of cancer than the general population. Compared to a baseline of 100 score of for you and me, PC workers had:
Proportional cancer mortality ratios (PCMR) were 166 for cancers affecting the brain and central nervous system, 162 for kidney cancer, 179 for melanoma and 126 for pancreatic cancer. In women, PCMRs were 212 for kidney cancer and 163 for cancer of all lymphatic and hematopoietic tissue. (
YouTube deleted some 30,000 clips lifted from Japanese TV and movies after a Japanese trade group complained. The Japan Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers, found 29,549 video clips such as television shows, music videos and movies posted on YouTube's site without permission. Google-owned YouTube agreed to deploy an audio screening technology that could spot low-quality copy of a licensed clip. YouTube would have to substitute an approved version or remove the material automatically.
