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The broad support in the U.S. government for two controversial antipiracy bills appears to be evaporating.

The latest string of setbacks for supporters of the bills came Saturday when Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the Oversight committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, said that he was promised by Majority leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) that a vote on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) will not occur "unless there is consensus on the bill."

"While I remain concerned about Senate action on the Protect IP Act [a similar bill to SOPA introduced into the Senate … Read more

All across Twitter these days, you can find people who are standing up to the bipartisan Congressional coalition behind the Stop Online Piracy Act. But one news site is taking its protest a whole lot further than simply plastering a "STOP SOPA" banner across its Twitter profile picture.

Reddit, a popular news aggregator, said today that it will be "blacking out" its entire site for 12 hours on January 18.

"The freedom, innovation, and economic opportunity that the Internet enables is in jeopardy," Reddit's editors posted this afternoon. "Congress is considering legislation … Read more

Steven Van Zandt was born to run and Netflix is hoping the former "Sopranos" actor and member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street band has a long run in the upcoming original Netflix series, "Lilyhammer."

Van Zandt stars in the show about a mafia boss who moves to Norway as part of a witness protection program. Netflix announced yesterday that series will debut on its video streaming and rental service on February 6, becoming one of the company's first exclusive TV serials.

The move comes as a minor surprise in that Netflix was widely expected … Read more

Verizon Wireless' deal with cable providers is facing scrutiny from the Justice Department.

That's according to a report today from Bloomberg, citing an anonymous source. The report said the Justice Department would look at whether Verizon would control too much spectrum, and whether the cross-selling component of the deal would violate antitrust laws.

Verizon earlier this month shored up its spectrum needs by acquiring a swath owned by Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks for $3.6 billion. As part of the deal, Verizon agreed to resell cable service in its national chain of stores, while the … Read more

A marathon congressional hearing on the Stop Online Piracy Act, which detoured through discussions of Twitter-borne insults and the popular meme "The Internet is for Porn," was expected to resume sometime in 2012.

But Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, said this afternoon on Twitter that the hearing will continue Wednesday morning -- but only if the U.S. House of Representatives is in session.

Any delay represents a victory for opponents of SOPA, who pulled off a quasi-filibuster by repeatedly presenting critiques of the controversial Hollywood-backed copyright legislation and offering over 70 amendments that sought to rewrite … Read more

"The sea is everything. It covers seven-tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides." - Jules Verne, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea"

The ocean is indeed teeming with life, and I, for one, never tire of watching documentaries and nature specials about it. Now, a Los Angeles-based company is giving you the chance to capture video of life under sea with your iPhone.

The FourPro is an underwater housing rig designed for the iPhone 4 and 4S by Mocean Armor. Built from marine-grade aluminum and stainless steel components, the FourPro seals in your smartphone and allows you to shoot video underwater at a depth of up to 100 feet. … Read more

A new version of the Stop Online Piracy Act appears to be no more popular than the last one was.

In an effort to head off mounting criticism before a vote on the legislation this Thursday, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) today announced a series of tweaks (PDF) to SOPA, which is backed by Hollywood and major record labels but opposed by Internet firms and the Consumer Electronics Association.

But Smith, who heads the House Judiciary committee, stopped short of altering the core of SOPA--meaning that allegedly piratical Web sites could still be made to vanish from the Internet. Deep … Read more

Foes of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act are rallying opponents ranging from Internet engineers to First Amendment scholar Laurence Tribe ahead of an expected committee vote on the legislation this week.

Their aim is to sway the 39 members of the House Judiciary committee, which oversees copyright law. The panel's chairman is Lamar Smith of Texas, Hollywood's favorite House Republican and the principal author of SOPA, which has drawn what may be an unprecedented public outcry from Internet users and companies including Facebook, Twitter, Mozilla, eBay, and Google.

Tribe, a high-profile Harvard law professor and author of … Read more

First, there was "The Imperial March" and now, there's "House of the Rising Sun."

The traditional folk song is just the latest tune to be covered by an unlikely group of musicians: old computer equipment. YouTube user bd594 assembled a handful of old tech to re-create the tune made famous by the English rock group The Animals in the mid-1960s.

In his video description, bd594 explains that he used an Atari 800XL with an EiCO Oscilloscope to play the part of the organ, while the combination of an HP Scanjet 3P, Adaptec SCSI card, and an Ubuntu v9.10-powered computer provided the "vocals." The guitar section was performed by a Texas Instrument Ti-99/4A computer with a Tektronix Oscilloscope, and a hard drive powered by a PiC16F84A microcontroller created the bass, drum, and cymbals section.

Each instrument was recorded separately and then mixed; bd594 insists no sampling and audio effects were used in the recording session. What results is a pretty impressive and fresh take on the song. … Read more