Sony has stealthily released a new firmware for the Playstation 3 earlier tonight. The new software update weighs in at 33.5 MB.

Although Sony did not release notes about firmware 3.42 for the Playstation 3, many users are reporting (via Exophase) that it blocks the USB exploit which previously allowed unsigned code to run on the system. As a result, homebrew devices used for the exploit (such as the PS Freedom, PS Groove and PS Jailbreak) are no longer functional after the update.
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The adoption by the European Parliament of Written Declaration 12 opposing the ACTA agreement sends a strong political signal. European Commission shows its will to quickly conclude the negotiations of this agreement that includes harmful provisions for fundamental rights. ACTA aims at circumventing democracy to impose now and later repressive legislation through secret negotiations. The European Parliament now has a unique occasion to firmly oppose it. ...

Music lovers and especially trance and progressive music fans have a new place where they can go for free downloads. The new niche file sharing site called Zeduga offers a nice, clean layout, free of annoying ads and with a good searching system.
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In an attempt to protect the Russian nongovernmental organizations and the independent news media from attacks by authorities who accuse them of violating Microsoft's copyrights, the company will temporarily legalize their pirated software.

What Microsoft will actually do is issue a “unilateral NGO software license” that will be covering NGOs' software automatically, until 2012, according to Microsoft’s senior vice president Brad Smith.
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SystemRescueCd 1.6.0 has been released bringing new Linux kernels as well as some updated packages. X.Org has been updated as well as the Linux NTFS driver.
SystemRescueCd's main packages, GParted and partimage have also been updated.
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Microsoft's top lawyer said on Monday that the company is taking action in the wake of a report that its antipiracy efforts have been used by the Russian government as a means to monitor computers of dissident groups in that country.
In a blog post, general counsel Brad Smith said that the company is hiring an outside law firm to investigate a report in The New York Times that the Russian government has used Microsoft's antipiracy efforts as a pretext to search computers of potential dissidents and, separately, that some lawyers hired by Microsoft have worked with corrupt police to shake down businesses over the piracy issue.
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