Making a telephone call, sending a text message or reading emails on a mobile phone from across the European Union will cost less from Wednesday.

Following the new price curbs, which take effect on July 1, it will be up to 60 percent cheaper to send mobile phone text messages while traveling in the EU or to surf the Web by laptop.

Operators will be allowed to charge customers a maximum of 11 euro cents (15 U.S. cents) per roamed text message (SMS), excluding sales tax, compared with current prices of about 28 cents.

As of July 1, prices for making a roamed mobile call will be capped at 43 euro cents per minute versus 46 cents previously, and at 19 cents, down from 22 cents, for calls received abroad.

Downloading data while roaming will cost a maximum of 1 euro per megabyte from Wednesday at the wholesale level compared with about 1.68 euros today.

The European Commission wants to end "bill shock," when business travelers or holidaymakers return home to huge charges for checking emails or surfing the Web while away by introducing a cut-off mechanism once the bill reaches 50 euros.

Internet Explorer 8 is a decent browser, but there’s a new ad for it (showing only online, according to Idsgn, which is where I read about it by way of Daring Fireball) that not only doesn’t make me wanting to use IE, but has me contemplating going door to door, beseeching my fellow human being to avoid it.

said by me1212 :

Ugh, just ugh. Ewww.......

In a decision that hands the RIAA an overwhelming victory, U.S. District Judge Harold Baer ruled in favor of the music industry on all its main theories: that Usenet.com is guilty of direct, contributory, and vicarious infringement. In addition, and perhaps most important for future cases, Baer said that Usenet.com can't claim protection under the Sony Betamax decision. That ruling says companies can't be held liable of contributory infringement if the device is "capable of significant non-infringing uses."

The case is highly unusual because of Baer's many findings of discovery misconduct by the Usenet.com side. The rules of discovery in a civil case requires both sides to exchange information. The RIAA produced evidence, however, that Usenet.com destroying evidence or failed to produce witnesses on multiple occasions.

Instead, the judge sanctioned Usenet.com "from asserting (the company's) affirmative defense of protection under the DMCA's safe harbor provision." The Digital Millennium Copyright Act's safe harbor provides refuge to Internet service providers from being held responsible for criminal acts committed by users. Without that and without the Betamax decision, Usenet.com was a sitting duck.

said by vinnie97 :

The benefit to the second crowd is the discovery of new music that might not have otherwise been known. RIAA are trying to be information control whores.

said by sonicmerlin :

Copyright infringement isn't actually "thievery".