feed on feeds - 2013/05/09 - items 0 to 15

Updates Batch Converter to handle all Windows Media files and ALAC-encoded CAF files. ($32 new, free update, 11.5 MB)

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After receiving a recent major update to the keyboard-driven launcher, version 2.0.3 squashes a heaping helping of bugs. (Free, £15 for Powerpack, 2.8 MB)

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Maintenance release with a few targeted fixes for Outlook, PowerPoint, and Word. (Free update, 113 MB)

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An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from Ars Technica: "Righthaven, the Las Vegas operation that sought to turn newspaper article copyright lawsuits into a business model, can now slap a date on its death certificate: May 9, 2013. This morning, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled on the two Righthaven appeals that could have given the firm a final glimmer of hope—and the court told Righthaven to take a hike (PDF)."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The App.net messaging infrastructure service has released Passport, an iOS app that allows signing up for a free-tier account without an invitation, but doesn’t allow posting or messaging. This is all part of App.net’s support for developers.

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First time accepted submitter He Who Has No Name writes "While the ATF appears to have no open objection to 3D printed firearms at this time, the Department of Defense apparently does. A short while ago, '#DEFCAD has gone dark at the request of the Department of Defense Trade Controls. Take it up with the Secretary of State' appeared on the group's site, and download links for files hosted there began to give users popups warning of the DoD takeover." Well, that didn't take long. Note: As of this writing, the site is returning an error, rather than the message above, but founder Cody Wilson has posted a similar message to twitter. At least the Commander in Chief is in town to deliver the message personally.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Teachers and students take to streets across Spain to protest education reforms that increase religious content.

recoiledsnake writes "The first real world stats for Chromebooks show that they're struggling to have any traction in the marketplace. In its first week of monitoring worldwide usage of Google's Chrome OS, NetMarketShare reported that the percentage of web traffic from Chromebooks was roughly 2/100 of 1 percent, a figure too small to earn a place on its reports. The first Chromebooks went on sale in June 2011, nearly two years ago, with Acer reportedly selling fewer than 5000 units in the first six months and Samsung selling even fewer. In the past three years, Chromebook sales have been worse than even three months worth of WindowsRT sales. Perhaps users are heeding Stallman's warning on Chromebooks. We previously discussed reports of Chromebook topping Amazon sales, selling to 2000 schools and wondered whether QuickOffice on ChromeOS can topple Microsoft Office." I find ChromeOS good in some contexts (any place that a browser and a thin layer of Linux is all you need), but the limitations are frustrating — especially on hardware that can run a conventional Linux as well as Google's specialized one. We'll watch for developments in the Google hardware world at next week's I/O conference.