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Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Amazon's Kindle Worlds will pay writers to write fan fiction.

- Hire your favorite musician to write you a song .

- And now a reading from the worst fan fiction I've ever read.

- Follow Russ Frushtick on Twitter.… Read more

Most people probably associate Ethernet with a simple cable cinched with phone-like jacks. But, Ethernet is so much more.

It is the foundation for global Internet access and undoubtedly the world's most-used connectivity technology. In the annals of "techdom," Ethernet is a very big deal.

"Ethernet ranks highly among those technologies that impact day-to-day life on a global basis," IEEE Standards Association writes on its Web site. "Data center networks, PCs, laptops, tablets, smartphones, and now the smart grid, smart meters, personal medical devices, the Internet of Things, connected cars, and more -- Ethernet … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Former 404 guest and Internet Archivist releases Web's largest collection of historical software.

- Judge holds himself in contempt for cell phone going off in court.

- NY Philharmonic phone disruption: A cell-phone etiquette reminder.

- Here's a 90-year-old granny freaking out over Oculus Rift.… Read more

For years, criminal defense attorneys, academics, and civil libertarians have warned that an anti-hacking law, originally designed to protect NORAD's computers, needs to be reformed. Federal prosecutors have used the law to prosecute the late Aaron Swartz and a Missouri woman accused of lying on her MySpace profile.

Now a key U.S. House of Representatives committee finally is rewriting the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. But instead of fixing the law's vagueness problems, or reducing its penalties, draft legislation backed by the Justice Department would make it even more Draconian.

It's a bitter setback to the … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Check out our interview with B.O.B. and Big Boi for their new game, "Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel."

- Mico headphones let your brainwaves choose the music.

- Google Images adds filters for animated GIFs.

- Detroit doctors link garbled texting as first sign of a stroke.… Read more

A once-obscure copyright law that the U.S. Senate unanimously approved in 1998 has finally irritated so many members of the public that Congress might bother to defang it.

It's not like the flaws of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act have remained a state secret for the last 15 years: it's been wielded to threaten Princeton security researchers, restrict replacement garage door openers, and jail a programmer who dared to create an e-book converter. One federal appeals court even invoked the law when banning "linking" to certain DMCA-offending Web sites.

Not one of those extrusions of … Read more

Disney CEO Bob Iger said today that the Hollywood giant plans on making a series of new spin-off films based on existing "Star Wars" characters.

These new films would be in addition to the forthcoming "Episode VII" that is slated for a possible 2015 release (and which will be directed by "Star Trek" director J.J. Abrams), and two subsequent full "Star Wars" sequels.

Iger revealed the news in an interview on CNBC today (see video below), explaining that the spin-off films will be produced alongside the full "Star Wars" … Read more

It was one year ago today that an unprecedented outcry against the Stop Online Piracy Act proved to Washington officialdom that sufficiently irritated Internet users are a potent political force. After Wikipedia, Google, Craigslist and other major sites asked their users to contact their representatives, the deluge of traffic knocked some Senate Web sites offline, and votes on both bills were indefinitely postponed.

The massive public outcry that, by some counts, involved more than 10 million Internet users concerned about the proposals' impact on free expression has turned the protests into a cautionary tale on Capitol Hill. Aides now worry … Read more

Anyone wanting to download the SpongeBob Diner Dash game from Apple's iTunes app store today is out of luck.

Nickelodeon has removed the app from the store after an advocacy group filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission alleging the game violated children's online privacy rights by collecting their e-mail addresses without parents' permission.

According to the Center for Digital Democracy, which filed the complaint earlier today, cable network Nickelodeon and mobile game-maker PlayFirst are misleadingly marketing the game and are violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

SpongeBob Diner Dash is a free app … Read more