December 20th, 2012 12:03
admin
An anonymous reader writes in with a story about the Constitutional Court of Austria
objecting to the EU’s data retention law.
“The European Union’s data retention law could breach fundamental E.U. law because its requirements result in an invasion of citizens’ privacy, according to the Constitutional Court of Austria, which has asked the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to determine the directive’s validity. The primary problem with the data retention law is that it almost exclusively affects people in whom government or law enforcement have no prior interest. But authorities use the data for investigations and are informed about people’s personal lives, the court said, and there is a risk that the data can be abused. ‘We doubt that the E.U. Data Retention Directive is really compatible with the rights that are guaranteed by the E.U. Charter of Fundamental Rights,’ Gerhart Holzinger, president of the Constitutional Court of Austria said in a statement.”Source: European Data Retention Rule Could Violate Fundamental EU Law
Categories: slashdot Tags: anonymous reader, Austria, charter of fundamental rights, Constitutional, constitutional court, Court, data retention law, E.U, E.U. Charter, E.U. Data, european court of justice ecj, law, retention
December 17th, 2012 12:18
admin
carmendrahl writes
“In Austria, people can submit their street drugs to a lab-on-a-bus to ensure they got what they paid for. The government is using the bus to track emergence of new variants of bath salts and other drugs. Now, researchers have developed a test they’d like to add to the bus’s offerings: it assesses drug action (full paper) instead of just reporting chemical structure.”
Source: Austria’s Mobile Drug Lab Could Test Street-Drug Effects, Too
Categories: slashdot Tags: Austria, bath salts, Bus, carmendrahl, chemical structure, drug, drug effects, Government, street drugs, test, variants
December 11th, 2012 12:07
admin
An anonymous reader writes
“Depending on where you are in the world, blank media may have a secondary tax applied to it. It seems ludicrous that such a tax even be considered, let alone be imposed, and yet an Austrian rights group called IG Autoren isn’t happy with such a tax covering just physical media; it wants cloud storage included, too. At the moment, consumers in Austria only pay this tax on blank CDs and DVDs. IG Autoren wants to expand that to include the same range of media as Germany, but also feels that services like Dropbox, SkyDrive, Google Drive etc. all fall under the blank media banner because they offer storage, and therefore should carry the tax — a tax consumers would have to pay on top of the existing price of each service.”Source: Austrian Blank Media Tax May Expand To Include Cloud Storage
Categories: slashdot Tags: anonymous reader, Austria, Autoren, cloud, Germany, google, reader, service source, skydrive, storage, tax, tax consumers
November 30th, 2012 11:52
admin
An anonymous reader writes
“A Tor Exit node owner is being prosecuted in Austria. As part of the prosecution, all of his electronics have been held by the authorities, including over 20 computers, his cell phone and hard disks. ‘During interview with police later on Wednesday, Weber said there was a “more friendly environment” once investigators understood the Polish server that transmitted the illegal images was used by Tor participants rather than by Weber himself. But he said he still faces the possibility of serious criminal penalties and the possibility of a precedent that Tor operators can be held liable if he’s convicted.’ This brings up the question: What backup plan, if any, should the average nerd have for something like this?”Source: Raided For Running a Tor Exit Node
Categories: slashdot Tags: A Tor Exit, anonymous reader, Austria, backup plan, criminal penalties, hard disks, illegal images, node, owner, possibility, reader, Tor, Tor Exit, Weber
July 19th, 2012 07:52
admin
fangmcgee writes
“Archaeologists have unearthed several 500-year-old bras that some experts say could rewrite fashion history. While they’ll hardly send pulses racing by today’s standards, the lace-and-linen underpinnings predate the invention of the modern brassiere by hundreds of years. Found hidden under the floorboards of Lengberg Castle in Austria’s East Tyrol, along with some 2,700 textile fragments and one completely preserved pair of (presumably male) linen underpants, the four intact bras and two fragmented specimens are thought to date to the 15th century, a hypothesis scientists later confirmed through carbon-dating.”Source: Medieval “Lingerie” From 15th Century Castle Could Rewrite Fashion History
Categories: slashdot Tags: 15th century, archaeologists, Austria, brassiere, Century Castle, East Tyrol, fangmcgee, fashion, fashion history, floorboards, history, Lengberg Castle, today
June 21st, 2012 06:06
admin
First time accepted submitter
thecoolstacks writes
“Knockoff Apple Stores are one thing…but a knockoff Austrian village? That’s some hardcore piracy right there, but we guess leave it China to do what it does best. From the article: ‘After a year of construction and a price tag of $940 million dollars, the Chinese have successfully recreated the Austrian village of Hallstatt in its entirety over in the Southern Guangzhou Province. And let’s just say not every Austrian’s a fan of having their UNESCO heritage site ripped off. But since China is Austria’s second largest trading partnerwhat are you gonna do?’”Source: China Pirates Austrian Village
Categories: slashdot Tags: apple stores, Austria, Austrian Village, China, Guangzhou, Hallstatt, knockoff, rsquo, Southern Guangzhou Province, submitter, time, unesco heritage, village
June 21st, 2012 06:06
admin
First time accepted submitter
thecoolstacks writes
“Knockoff Apple Stores are one thing…but a knockoff Austrian village? That’s some hardcore piracy right there, but we guess leave it China to do what it does best. From the article: ‘After a year of construction and a price tag of $940 million dollars, the Chinese have successfully recreated the Austrian village of Hallstatt in its entirety over in the Southern Guangzhou Province. And let’s just say not every Austrian’s a fan of having their UNESCO heritage site ripped off. But since China is Austria’s second largest trading partnerwhat are you gonna do?’”Source: China Pirates Austrian Village
Categories: slashdot Tags: apple stores, Austria, Austrian Village, China, Guangzhou, Hallstatt, knockoff, rsquo, Southern Guangzhou Province, submitter, time, unesco heritage, village
June 6th, 2012 06:51
admin
An anonymous reader writes
“The IFPI, the global recording industry association, recently released its Recording Industry in Numbers 2012, which provides detailed sales data from countries around the world. While CRIA talks about ‘rebuilding the marketplace,’ the industry’s own data indicates that Canada already stands among the global leaders in digital music sales. Michael Geist digs into the data and finds that Canadians purchased more single track downloads than Germany or Japan, and more than double the sales in France, despite the fact that each of those countries has far larger populations. In fact, Canadian sales were larger than all the sales from Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden combined. Not only is the Canadian digital market far larger than virtually every European market, it continues to grow faster than the U.S. digital music market as well. In fact, the Canadian digital music market has grown faster than the U.S. market for the past six consecutive years.”Source: Canada No Pirate Nation: Global Leader In Music Download Sales
Categories: slashdot Tags: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, digital music sales, fact, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Industry, Ireland, Japan, market, Michael Geist, music, pirate nation, Portugal, portugal spain, Recording, recording industry association, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, U.S.
June 6th, 2012 06:51
admin
An anonymous reader writes
“The IFPI, the global recording industry association, recently released its Recording Industry in Numbers 2012, which provides detailed sales data from countries around the world. While CRIA talks about ‘rebuilding the marketplace,’ the industry’s own data indicates that Canada already stands among the global leaders in digital music sales. Michael Geist digs into the data and finds that Canadians purchased more single track downloads than Germany or Japan, and more than double the sales in France, despite the fact that each of those countries has far larger populations. In fact, Canadian sales were larger than all the sales from Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden combined. Not only is the Canadian digital market far larger than virtually every European market, it continues to grow faster than the U.S. digital music market as well. In fact, the Canadian digital music market has grown faster than the U.S. market for the past six consecutive years.”Source: Canada No Pirate Nation: Global Leader In Music Download Sales
Categories: slashdot Tags: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, digital music sales, fact, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Industry, Ireland, Japan, market, Michael Geist, music, pirate nation, Portugal, portugal spain, Recording, recording industry association, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, U.S.
June 5th, 2012 06:02
admin
Hugh Pickens writes
“A scenic mountain village in Austria called Hallstatt has been copied, down to the statues, by a Chinese developer. Residents of the original Hallstatt attended Saturday’s opening in China for the high-end residential project, but were still miffed about how the company did it. ‘They should have asked the owners of the hotel and the other buildings if we agree with the idea to rebuild Hallstatt in China, and they did not,’ says hotel owner Monika Wenger. People in Hallstatt first learned a year ago of the plan when a Chinese guest at Wenger’s hotel who was involved with the project inadvertently spilled the beans. Minmetals staff had been taking photos and gathering data while mingling with tourists, raising suspicions among villagers. The original village is a centuries-old village of 900 and a UNESCO heritage site that survives on tourism. The copycat is a $940 million housing estate that thrives on China’s new rich. In a country famous for pirated products, the replica Hallstatt sets a new standard. ‘The moment I stepped into here, I felt I was in Europe,’ says 22-year-old Zhu Bin, a Huizhou resident. ‘The security guards wear nice costumes. All the houses are built in European style.’ This isn’t the first time a Chinese firm has used a European place as inspiration. The Chinese city of Anting, some 30 kilometers from Shanghai, created a district designed to accommodate 20,000 residents called ‘German Town Anting’ and in 2005 Chengdu British Town was modeled on the English town of Dorchester.”
Source: China Secretly Clones Austrian Village
Categories: slashdot Tags: Anting, Austria, Austrian Village, Chengdu, China, chinese firm, Dorchester, Europe, Hallstatt, Hotel, Hugh Pickens, Monika Wenger, project, residential project, scenic mountain, Shanghai, town, unesco heritage, village, Zhu Bin