The venerable Oxford English Dictionary has long been the definitive reference work on the English language. This week, it lent the majesty of its name to “LOL" (laughing out loud), a shiny new entry which will now join OMG, IMHO, TMI, BFF, and other linguistic "initialisms" in the dictionary. And why not? It's a perfectly cromulent word.
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In its 2010 annual report (PDF), recorded music's global trade body said that the industry would "struggle to survive unless we address the fundamental problem of piracy." Just how "fundamental" a problem is that piracy? Not very, as new research suggests that only 9 percent of US Internet users even use peer-to-peer networks at all, down substantially from 2007.
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Facebook chief privacy advisor Mozelle Thompson appeared before the Australian Parliament’s cyber-safety committee this week to discuss Internet-related security issues. Thanks to the event, we learned that about 20,000 users are kicked off Facebook every day for various infractions, including for lying about their age.
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In recent weeks many Pirate Bay users have received an email, allegedly sent by The Pirate Bay team, encouraging them to download a course on how to make money from the site. The email is clearly sent by spammers, but since this is not the first time the Pirate Bay user database has been exploited, users are starting to worry how it’s possible that their personal info is leaking out again.
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At a board meeting in Silicon Valley on Friday, ICANN approved a new top-level domain for porn sites. URLs ending in .xxx will contain sexually oriented adult entertainment content that is verified to be neither fraudulent nor illegal.
Advocates have been attempting to get this approval since 2003, but the movement for the .xxx TLD has bred controversy, as do most conversations around the porn industry.
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Digital piracy is a war with many sides, with each party standing firmly on their own side of a thick line in the sand. But a group of young Aussie filmmakers are hoping to blur those lines with the impending release of their upcoming horror film The Tunnel, which will launch simultaneously on DVD and on Bittorrent trackers around the world on May 19.
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