The 13 biggest pop culture moments of 2012

From the rise of an unexpected NBA superstar to the announcement of a royal baby, this was a year of smiles, shocks, and sheer Gangnamminess
1. Linsanity takes over the NBA
When the New York Knicks picked up Jeremy Lin as a backup point guard in late 2011, he was widely regarded as a temporary Band-Aid designed to cover for injured players Iman Shumpert and Baron Davis. Shocking both fans and analysts, Lin came from nowhere and absolutely dominated for a weeks-long stretch in early 2012, averaging nearly 25 points and 9 assists per game, with a peak of 38 points in a February 10 game against the Lakers. Lin's remarkable ascent led The New York Times to dub him the Knicks' "most popular player in a decade," and, though Lin's subsequent tenure this season with the Houston Rockets has been less successful, the brief period of "Linsanity" qualifies as the NBA's most surprising and entertaining story in years.
2. Whitney Houston dies
The music world was rocked in February by the unexpected death of best-selling singer and actress Whitney Houston at age 48. Famous for songs like "The Greatest Love of All" and "I Will Always Love You," Houston enjoyed enormous success in the 80s and 90s but floundered amid widely publicized reports of drug use in the early 2000s. Despite numerous attempts at rehabilitation, Houston drowned in a bathtub after ingesting drugs that included Xanax, marijuana, and cocaine. Her death triggered an outpouring of grief from admirers and friends including Oprah Winfrey, Dolly Parton, and Mariah Carey, who called Houston "one of the greatest voices to ever grace the earth."
3. Encyclopedia Britannica suspends print edition
In a March blog post titled "Change: It's okay. Really," the editors of the venerable Encyclopedia Britannica — the massive, leather-bound tomes seen in libraries and schools since 1768 — announced that they were discontinuing the printed edition. The blog post goes on to promise that "the encyclopedia would live on" in "bigger, more numerous, and more vibrant digital forms," but the end of the 244-year old institution was yet another harbinger of the death of printt.
4. Fifty Shades of Grey sparks "mommy porn" revolution
There was no bigger story in the literary world this summer than the remarkable rise of E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey and its two sequels, which sold even faster than the works of J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter) or Stephenie Meyer (Twilight). The books — which chronicle the sadomasochistic romance between billionaire Christian Grey and the virginal Anastasia Steele — were largely consumed by married women over 30, which led many in the media to dub them "mommy porn." And as 2012 draws to a close, a Fifty Shades film is reportedly in development, with fans eagerly debating who should step into the lead roles.
5. The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises square off at the box-office
Though superhero blockbusters have dominated the summer movie season for the better part of a decade, two of the most anticipated takes on the genre, The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises, upped the stakes this year. In the end, the funnier, looser Avengers, an ensemble piece, came out on top, earning over $1.5 billion worldwide — but Warner Bros. shouldn't feel too bad about the box-office take of their grimmer star vehicle, The Dark Knight Rises, the only other movie to earn more than $1 billion worldwide in 2012.
6. "Gangnam Style" takes over the world
Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" may have been this summer's buzziest new single, but no song has defined 2012 more than Psy's inescapable "Gangnam Style," which recently set the record for most-viewed YouTube video ever. "Gangnam Style" has become a worldwide phenomenon, earning more than 1 billion views (and counting), spawning thousands of tribute videos, and giving the South Korean singer the opportunity to do his crazy horse-riding dance with everyone from Madonna to Britney Spears. Hey, sexy lady, indeed.
7. London's Summer Olympics delight
The 2012 Summer Olympics, which took place from July 27 to Aug. 12, were a widely celebrated, headline-dominating affair. More than 10,000 athletes from 204 countries hopped a flight to London, England to participate in more than 300 events. In the end, the United States won more gold medals and more medals overall than any other nation, with China and Great Britain taking second and third.
8. NHL lockout: No end in sight
NHL fans have suffered through lockouts before, but virtually no one expected the 2012 lockout, which officially began on Sep. 15, to last for more than a few weeks — let alone for nearly half the season. But as December draws to a close, no end is in sight for the lockout, as the franchise owners and the NHL Players' Association continue to battle over contracts and hockey-related revenue — all to the increasing frustration of fans. "It's pure madness in my opinion. All of it. Both sides," said ESPN's Pierre Lebrun in a recent column.
9. Felix Baumgartner completes world's highest skydive
On October 14, daredevil Felix Baumgartner leapt from a capsule floating nearly 24 miles over the earth in a successful attempt to break the record for the world's highest skydive. To complete his daring feat, Baumgartner relied on a specially designed balloon and pressure suit, and the help of an entire ground control team. Baumgartner's leap was also a triumph for online media: The event set a record for live-streaming with the most concurrent views on YouTube.
10. AMC's The Walking Dead smashes ratings records
AMC's The Walking Dead has always been a hit, but few TV analysts foresaw the strength with which the show would begin its third season. An average of 10.9 million viewers tuned in for the gory zombie drama's Oct. 14 premiere, making it the most-watched drama-series telecast in basic cable history, and soundly trouncing any of the show's network competitors.
11. Disney buys Lucasfilm, prepares Star Wars: Episode VII for 2014 release
Hundreds of thousands of Star Wars fans felt a great disturbance in the Force when Disney announced it was acquiring Lucasfilm and all of its assets, including the venerable Star Wars franchise, and was planning to release a new installment in the series in 2014. Though virtually nothing is known about the tentatively titled Star Wars: Episode VII, the announcement may herald a new direction for the franchise. Star Wars' future has never been more open-ended.
12. The Twilight Saga draws to a close
The Nov. 16 release of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 marked the end of the massively popular tween franchise, though the series' influence will be felt in the countless paranormal-romance novels and films its revenues have inspired. The five films in the Twilight series earned a combined total of $1.35 billion at the box office, and turned young, relatively untested stars Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson into international icons.
13. Will and Kate announce royal pregnancy
On Dec. 3, St. James Palace announced that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge — otherwise known as William and Kate — are expecting their first child. Unfortunately, the joyful news has been tempered by Kate's hyperemesis gravidarum, a pregnancy illness that resulted in her extended stay at a hospital, and the suicide of nurse Jacintha Saldanha, which occurred shortly after Saldanha was the victim of a prank phone call by a pair of Australian DJs.

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Hug It Out: Public Charter and District Schools Given $25 Million to Get Along

If you need a loan, ask Bill and Melinda Gates. Or better yet, ask one of the seven cities that are splitting a new $25 million grant courtesy of the couple’s philanthropic foundation.
The funds are going to promote cross collaboration between charter and district schools, which have previously operated in a strict and contentious independence from one another.
The foundation announced the award this week, and the cities benefiting are Boston, Denver, Hartford (CT), New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia and Spring Branch (TX).
How did they get so lucky? They’re among a group of 16 communities that signed the Gates-sponsored “District-Charter Collaboration Compacts” pledging for an open-source collaboration between public charter and district public schools.
Communication between these two models is unusual to say the least; they’ve had a long and illustrious history of battling each other over tax dollars, students and even building space.
But when charter schools first opened 20 years ago, their original purpose was to create an experimental educational space which would then share its best methods with public district schools. Instead, the two grew into rivals and critics of each are vehemently opposed to the other.
Among the complaints, charter schools are seen as selfishly siphoning off the most motivated students from the district while upholding a rich-poor educational divide and failing to live up to the promise of a better education. Others say its district schools that are the issue for their unionized teacher complacency and a consistent inability to keep a large margin of students from falling through the cracks.
In truth, neither system is a slam-dunk, and both are experiencing closures nationwide due to underperformance.
The goal of the District-Charter Collaboration Compacts is to restore the original relationship of the two camps, effectively establishing a regular protocol of sharing their best practices, innovations and resources.
Don Shalvey, the deputy director at teh Gates Foundation told The New York Times, “It took Microsoft and Apple 10 years to learn to talk. So it’s not surprising that it took a little bit longer for charters and other public schools. It’s pretty clear there is more common ground than battleground.”
But what will this grand collaboration yield? If all goes according to plan, students from both camps will benefit from new teacher effectiveness practices, college-ready tools and supports, and innovative instructional delivery systems.
According to the Gates Foundation, only one-third of students meet the criteria of college ready by the time they graduate. And most of the kids who don’t are often minority students from lower income areas. By creating collaborative aims with charter and district, kids from all over can have access to a wider swath of teaching frameworks and curriculums.

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Composición de un grupo de usuarios OpenNMS independiente; conferencia prevista para marzo 2013

Un grupo de usuarios OpenNMS ha creado la OpenNMS Foundation Europe como organización sin ánimo de lucro para promover la gestión de red en general y la plataforma de gestión de red OpenNMS en particular.
"La OpenNMS Foundation Europe acoge a todos aquellos usuarios de OpenNMS dentro de la comunidad OpenNMS, no solo a aquellos que contribuyen al código. Hemos integrado con éxito a aquellos que contribuyen al código, pero si uno fuese únicamente un usuario satisfecho que deseara compartir con el resto y aprender de ellos, estaríamos mucho peor organizados", ha explicado Alex Finger, presidente de la OpenNMS Foundation Europe. "Ahora disponemos de un lugar en el que reunir a los seguidores de OpenNMS y difundir nuestros conocimientos y experiencia en relación con el producto. Queremos abogar por el open source y enseñar a los demás a utilizar OpenNMS. La fundación es una forma de ampliar esta comunidad". La agenda de la conferencia de usuarios prevista para el año que viene ya está repleta de las historias y experiencias de estos usuarios, y completada por una formación básica y avanzada de la aplicación.
Tarus Balog, CEO del grupo OpenNMS Group (la empresa con ánimo de lucro detrás de OpenNMS), ha declarado: "Una de las plataformas de gestión más exitosa de todos los tiempos fue OpenView, de Hewlett-Packard. En gran medida, este éxito se puede atribuir a la comunidad independiente y activa desarrollada por el grupo de usuarios OpenView Forum. El hecho de que la fundación promueva todavía más OpenNMS y haga hincapié en la naturaleza open source del software nos anima y entusiasma".
La conferencia de usuarios OpenNMS está prevista para la semana del 11 de marzo de 2013, y tendrá lugar en la Universidad de Fulda, Alemania. La información completa sobre dicha conferencia y las oportunidades de patrocinio están disponibles en http://opennms.eu.
ACERCA DE OPENNMS
OpenNMS (www.opennms.org) es la primera plataforma de aplicación de gestión de red de empresa desarrollada siguiendo el modelo open source. Es una alternativa de software totalmente gratuita frente a los productos comerciales como HP Operations Manager, IBM Tivoli, y CA Unicenter.
ACERCA DE LA OPENNMS FOUNDATION
La OpenNMS Foundation Europe (www.opennms.eu) es una organización registrada sin ánimo de lucro de Alemania. La fundación promueve la educación, investigación, defensa e intercambio de conocimientos en torno a la gestión de red con software open source y, específicamente, OpenNMS. Está abierta para aquellas personas y empresas interesadas en formar parte de dicha comunidad.
ACERCA DEL GRUPO OPENNMS
El grupo OpenNMS (www.opennms.com) mantiene el proyecto OpenNMS. Dicho grupo también ofrece asistencia comercial, servicios y formación para la plataforma OpenNMS.
El comunicado en el idioma original, es la versión oficial y autorizada del mismo. La traducción es solamente un medio de ayuda y deberá ser comparada con el texto en idioma original, que es la única versión del texto que tendrá validez legal.

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US designates Syria's Jabhat al-Nusra front a 'terrorist' group at lightning speed

The US State Department designated the Jabhat al-Nusra militia fighting Bashar al-Assad's government in Syria a foreign terrorist organization Monday.
The speed with which the US government moved to designate a fairly new group that has never attacked US interests and is engaged in fighting a regime that successive administrations have demonized is evidence of the strange bedfellows and overlapping agendas that make the Syrian civil war so explosive.
The State Department says Jabhat al-Nusra (or the "Nusra Front") is essentially a wing of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the jihadi group that flourished in Anbar Province after the US invaded to topple the Baathist regime of secular dictator Saddam Hussein. During the Iraq war, Sunni Arab tribesmen living along the Euphrates in eastern Syria flocked to fight with the friends and relatives in the towns along the Euphrates river in Anbar Province.
Think you know the Middle East? Take our geography quiz!
The terrain, both actual and human, is similar on both sides of that border, and the rat lines that kept foreign fighters and money flowing into Iraq from Syria work just as well in reverse. Now, the jihadis who fought and largely lost against the Shiite political ascendancy in Iraq are flocking to eastern Syria to repay a debt of gratitude in a battle that looks more likely to succeed every day.
The Nusra Front has gone from victory to victory in eastern Syria and has shown signs of both significant funding and greater military prowess than the average citizens' militia, with veterans of fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya among its numbers.
The US of course aided the fight in Libya to bring down Muammar Qaddafi. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the chance to fight and kill Americans was the major drawing card.
In Iraq, the US toppled a Baathist dictatorship dominated by Sunni Arabs, opening the door for the political dominance of Iraq's Shiite Arab majority and the fury of the country's Sunni jihadis. In Syria, a Baathist regime dominated by the tiny Alawite sect (a long-ago offshoot of Shiite Islam) risks being brought down by the Sunni majority. Iraq's Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is in the odd position of now rooting for a Baathist regime to survive, frightened that a religiously inspired Sunni regime may replace Assad and potentially destabilize parts of his country from Haditha in Anbar's far west to the northern city of Mosul.
For the US, the situation is more complicated still. The Obama administration appears eager for Assad to fall, but is also afraid of what might replace him, not least because of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile. If the regime collapses, the aftermath is sure to be chaotic, much as it was in Libya, where arms stores were looted throughout the country. The presence of VX and sarin nerve gas, and the fear of Al Qaeda aligned militants getting their hands on it, has the US considering sending in troops to secure the weapons.
That's the context in which today's designation was made – part of an overall effort to shape the Syrian opposition to US liking, and hopefully have influence in the political outcome if and when Assad's regime collapses. But while the US has been trying to find a government or leadership in waiting among Syrian exiles, Nusra has been going from strength to strength. Aaron Zelin, who tracks jihadi groups at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, notes in a recent piece for Foreign Policy that 20 out of the 48 "martyrdom" notices posted on Al Qaeda forums for the Syria war were made by people claiming to be members of Nusra.
Zelin writes that it's highly unusual for the US to designate as a terrorist group anyone who hasn't attempted an attack on the US. In fact, the US only designated the Haqqani Network in Afghanistan, which had been involved in attacks on US troops there for over a decade, this September.
His guess as to why the US took such an unusual step?
The U.S. administration, in designating Jabhat al-Nusra, is likely to argue that the group is an outgrowth of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). While there is not much open-source evidence of this, classified material may offer proof -- and there is certainly circumstantial evidence that Jabhat al-Nusra operates as a branch of the ISI.
Getting Syria's rebels to disavow Jabhat al-Nusra may not be an easy task, however. As in Iraq, jihadists have been some of the most effective and audacious fighters against the Assad regime, garnering respect from other rebel groups in the process. Jabhat al-Nusra seems to have learned from the mistakes of al Qaeda in Iraq: It has not attacked civilians randomly, nor has it shown wanton disregard for human life by publicizing videos showing the beheading of its enemies. Even if its views are extreme, it is getting the benefit of the doubt from other insurgents due to its prowess on the battlefield.
Will it hurt the group's support inside Syria? It's hard to see how. The US hasn't formally explained its logic yet, but it's hard to see how that will matter either. The rebellion against Assad has raged for almost two years now and the country's fighters are eager for victory, and revenge. The US has done little to militarily assist the rebellion, and fighters have been happy to take support where they can get it.
Most of the money or weapons flowing into the country for rebels has come from Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar and some of that support, of course, has ended up in the hands of Islamist militias like Nusra.
Usually the US doesn't like support flowing to its designated terrorist organizations, and leans on countries like Saudi Arabia to cut off support. But in this case, a doctrinaire enforcement of its will could look like helping Assad (who has insisted everyone fighting his government is a terrorist since long before Nusra even existed).

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Campaña en Facebook contra diputado costarricense gana premio internacional

an José, 11 dic (EFE).- Una campaña en la red social Facebook en contra de la designación del diputado cristiano Justo Orozco como presidente de la Comisión de Derechos Humanos del Congreso en Costa Rica, por sus posiciones en contra de la homosexualidad, ganó el premio Access Innovation Prize 2012.
La agencia costarricense de publicidad en línea BigWebNoise, creadora de la campaña, en la que participaron miles de personas pidiendo la salida de Orozco de la Comisión, informó hoy sobre el galardón y que a partir de ahora trabajará con Access y Facebook en desarrollo de la herramienta a nivel global.
La campaña "Fuera Justo Orozco" fue la ganadora de entre más de 300 postulantes de 66 países.
La "manifestación virtual" FueraJustoOrozco.com inició en junio anterior tras el nombramiento de Orozco como presidente de la Comisión de Derechos Humanos de la Asamblea Legislativa de Costa Rica.
Con el lema "si no bastó con la firma, pongamos la cara", la campaña invitó a los ciudadanos a "dar la cara", es decir a colocar su fotografía de perfil de Facebook en un espacio virtual para expresar su descontento por el nombramiento del diputado, que ha generando gran rechazo por sus posiciones abiertamente homofóbicas.
La aplicación alcanzó las primeras 5.000 caras en solo 48 horas y y sumó 14.000 usuarios en los primeros 10 días en línea. También produjo un enorme eco en medios de comunicación locales e internacionales, y una masiva difusión viral en redes sociales.
Esta es la primera vez que una acción costarricense de incidencia civil en línea es reconocida a nivel internacional.
El Access Innovation Prize, entregado el lunes en Nueva York, premia "las mejores ideas y acciones que usen las nuevas tecnologías de información para promover los derechos humanos", de acuerdo con un comunicado de la organización.
"En un país conocido por el respeto a los Derechos Humanos, esta iniciativa movilizó a los ciudadanos para dar la cara contra quien los amenaza", dijo al entregar el premio el gerente de Políticas Públicas de Facebook, Mathew Perault.
Para el director de Estrategia Online de BigWebNoise, Cristian Cambronero, "la frontera entre el mundo desconectado y el conectado cada día es más difusa. Internet ha probado ser una potente herramienta para la participación y la incidencia de los ciudadanos. Es una extensión del espacio público".
El jurado para este premio estuvo integrado por expertos en comunicación, innovación, derecho y emprendimiento como el consejero general de Twitter, Alex MacGillivray; el exCEO de Mozilla John Lilly y el vicepresidente de Comunicación y Políticas Públicas de Facebook, Elliot Schrage.
El premio otorga un reconocimiento económico de 20.000 dólares para garantizar la sostenibilidad del proyecto galardonado, pero además, los costarricenses trabajarán ahora junto a Access y Facebook en una segunda etapa que consiste en convertir la aplicación usada en FueraJustoOrozco.com en una herramienta "open-source" que pueda ser utilizada para causas sociales y de defensa de los Derechos Humanos en cualquier lugar del mundo. EFE

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Samsung Galaxy Muse is like an iPod Shuffle that Syncs with Your Phone

In perhaps the most awkwardly titled tech press release ever, Samsung Mobile announced the launch of the new Samsung Galaxy Muse, a device which appears to have nothing to do with "CORRECTING and REPLACING and ADDING MULTIMEDIA" but everything to do with being a music player crossed with a smartphone accessory.
​Say goodbye to iTunes?
While most handheld music players (and smartphone or tablets with music apps) sync with a PC or Mac music app, like iTunes or Banshee, the Samsung Galaxy Muse syncs with your Android phone itself. It uses the Muse Sync app, which Google Play says will install on devices like the Nexus 7 tablet but which Samsung says will only work with the Galaxy S II, Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note II smartphones.
​Plug it in, turn it on
The pebble-shaped Muse connects to your Samsung phone via its headset jack. It doesn't have a screen, so you have to control it iPod Shuffle style, and use the Muse Sync app to see how much of its 4 GB of space are free and decide which playlists to sync. Since it only has those 4 GB, it can only hold a fraction of the music that can be put on the much more powerful smartphones.
​Who is Samsung selling the Galaxy Muse to?
Samsung says "users can sync the songs they want and leave their phone behind," the usefulness of which may depend on whether or not you feel limited by having to bring your smartphone with you. The press release mentions its "wearable design and small form factor," and suggests taking it "in place of [your] smartphone ... at the gym or on the go."
​What other gadgets are like the Galaxy Muse?
The most obvious comparison is to the iPod Shuffle, Apple's similarly tiny and screen-less portable music player. At $49, it costs the same as the Galaxy Muse (although a Droid-Life tipster found a $25 off coupon code for the Muse), but comes in seven different colors and has an embossed click-wheel controller instead of a flat and featureless surface. It requires you to use iTunes on a desktop PC or Mac, though.
​On the upside
The Galaxy Muse's six hours of battery life may not be suitable for all-day listening, but may at least take the pressure off of a battery-hungry smartphone (so long as it's one of Samsung's flagship models). And as PCMag's Chloe Albanesius notes, "it's not very convenient to strap a 5.5-inch Galaxy Note II to your arm when you hit the gym."
Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg donating $500 million in stock to Silicon Valley charity

 Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday he is donating nearly $500 million in stock to a Silicon Valley charity with the aim of funding health and education issues.
Zuckerberg donated 18 million Facebook shares, valued at $498.8 million based on their Tuesday closing price. The beneficiary is the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a non-profit that works with donors to allocate their gifts.
This is Zuckerberg's largest donation to date. He pledged $100 million in Facebook stock to Newark, New Jersey, public schools in 2010, before his company went public earlier this year. Later in 2010, he joined Giving Pledge, an effort led by Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. CEO Warren Buffett to get the country's richest people to donate most of their wealth. His wife, Priscilla Chan, joined with him.
In a Facebook post Tuesday, Zuckerberg, 28, said he's "proud of the work" done by the foundation that his Newark donation launched, called Startup: Education, which has helped open charter schools, high schools and others.
With the latest contribution, he added, "we will look for areas in education and health to focus on next." He did not give further details on what plans there may be for funds.
"Mark's generous gift will change lives and inspire others in Silicon Valley and around the globe to give back and make the world a better place," said Emmett D. Carson, CEO of the foundation.

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Facebook CEO Zuckerberg donating $500M in stock

 Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he is donating nearly $500 million in stock to a Silicon Valley charity with the aim of funding health and education issues.
Zuckerberg donated 18 million Facebook shares, valued at $498.8 million based on their Tuesday closing price. The beneficiary is the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a nonprofit that works with donors to allocate their gifts.
This is Zuckerberg's largest donation to date. He pledged $100 million in Facebook stock to Newark, N.J., public schools in 2010, before his company went public earlier this year. Later in 2010, he joined Giving Pledge, an effort led by Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. CEO Warren Buffett to get the country's richest people to donate most of their wealth. His wife, Priscilla Chan, joined with him.
In a Facebook post Tuesday, Zuckerberg, 28, said he's "proud of the work" done by the foundation that his Newark donation launched, called Startup: Education, which has helped open charter schools, high schools and others.
With the latest contribution, he added, "we will look for areas in education and health to focus on next." He did not give further details on what plans there may be for funds.
"Mark's generous gift will change lives and inspire others in Silicon Valley and around the globe to give back and make the world a better place," said Emmett D. Carson, CEO of the foundation.

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You Can Download Your Entire Twitter History Now

this last weekend, but Twitter has made it official in a blog post today: you can download all your tweets, from forever. The archiving feature still isn't available to all users, but it's on its way, says Twitter, which will roll out the option "over the coming weeks and months." So maybe not that soon for some of you. Only those who currently see that option under the "settings" section of the site can download their past today. (If that option does exist, the Verge has a write-up complete with screen shots explaining the rest of the process.) For those who don't yet have the ability, however, take this time to consider if you're ready to face your former self (or selves). Some of you might not like the 2008 version of your social media persona. The rest of you, enjoy years of 140-character missives. We look forward to some more creative uses of the text.

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Facebook rejects German demand to allow fake names

 Facebook will fight a German privacy watchdog's demand to allow users to register with fake names, insisting Tuesday that its current practice fully complies with the law.
The California-based social networking site has long required users to register with their real names — a policy that the data protection commissioner of Schleswig-Holstein state says is in breach of German law and European rules designed to protect free speech online.
The commissioner, Thilo Weichert, ordered Facebook on Monday to rescind its real name policy immediately.
"We believe the orders are without merit, a waste of German taxpayers' money and we will fight it vigorously," Facebook said in a statement. The company claims that its real name policy is intended to protect users.
Weichert told The Associated Press that Facebook has two weeks to respond. If it fails to comply with the order, his office can impose a penalty against the company, said Weichert.
The maximum fine would be only €50,000 ($66,000) — peanuts for a multinational company, but nevertheless a symbolic blow that could also lead to a tougher stance from other German and European privacy regulators.
"We have the right to prevent this data protection breach," he said. "Theoretically we can order the website blocked, but that would be disproportionate."
German privacy rules have posed a legal headache for Facebook, Google and other web giants in recent years. The country has strict laws on data protection that give consumers significant rights to limit the way companies use their information.
Weichert has previously warned investors against buying Facebook shares, warning that the company's "business model will implode" because Facebook users' private information is used in breach of European law.

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