Hands Internet services providers and privacy advocates crucial victory “…in deciding to pass on an important Internet piracy case.

The morning papers, however, missed the boat on reporting the significance of the case, with most newspapers skipping the development all together or running wire copy on their sites.

In refusing to hear the case, the justices rebuffed an effort by the recording industry to establish once and for all that Internet service providers should have to hand over the identities of suspected file-swappers who subscribe to their networks. They also tacitly rejected the notion that the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a legitimate tool for tracking down Internet pirates.” (Yahoo! News)

“A federal panel of medical experts studying illnesses among veterans of the 1991 war in the Persian Gulf has broken with several earlier studies and concluded that many suffer from neurological damage caused by exposure to toxic chemicals, rejecting past findings that the ailments resulted mostly from wartime stress.

Citing new scientific research on the effects of exposure to low levels of neurotoxins, the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses concludes in its draft report that ‘a substantial proportion of Gulf War veterans are ill with multisymptom conditions not explained by wartime stress or psychiatric illness.’

It says a growing body of research suggests that many veterans’ symptoms have a neurological cause and that there is a ‘probable link’ to exposure to neurotoxins.

The report says possible sources include sarin, a nerve gas, from an Iraqi weapons depot blown up by American forces in 1991; a drug, pyridostigmine bromide, given to troops to protect against nerve gas; and pesticides used to protect soldiers in the region.” (New York Times)

“Call me a cynic, but I don’t think a rice-sized RFID chip above my elbow is going to save my life, or anyone else’s. At least not anytime soon…

First off, the chip doesn’t contain any medical information, something that was missed by many accounts, especially on television. It contains a 16-digit code that can be read by a $650 scanner—something that a health care provider may or may not have. These scanners are hooked into software that can pull up medical information, as specified by the patient.

Based on the actual information provided to the care giver, the RFID product is much the same as lower-tech and vastly-cheaper products such as alert bracelets or plastic cards that inform emergency personnel to contact an information center. While the chip may be able to provide information faster, the speed only comes if medical providers have all the right equipment in working order. The other systems are almost universally accessible, and again, they cost much less.

Getting the chip inserted costs between $150 and $200, according a report. After that, the Global VeriChip Subscriber Registry service costs $9.95 a month, billed to a subscriber’s credit card. Subscriptions for similar low-tech services cost less than a third of this price.

As far as I can tell, the VeriChip service suffers from the exact same problem that the low tech versions do: patients will be unwilling to pay for them, and providers won’t trust that patients will update their information.” (Yahoo! News)