Weekend tech reading: How ACTA would affect you

How ACTA would affect you: FAQ If you thought SOPA and PIPA were bad, ACTA is in an entirely different league of its own. ACTA may not order a mass culling of kittens, or declare war on China, but it will have a massive impact on trade, copyright, and intellectual property rights. SOPA and PIPA overshadowed much of ACTA's progress over the past few months... ZDNet

Universal Music may have inadvertently exposed a flaw in the YouTube takedown process Last month, before federal authorities shut down Megaupload, the popular file-storage website got into a legal brawl with Universal Music Group over a video that was removed from YouTube. Megaupload hasn't experienced much success thus far in pressing claims that UMG misused its copyrights by removing the video, which featured many stars purportedly endorsing Megaupload. But the lawsuit did reveal something that wasn't known... The Hollywood Reporter

Facebook IPO is nigh, should you buy? A number of media sources are reporting that Facebook will file for an initial public offering next week. Apparently, Morgan Stanley is to be the lead underwriter. Goldman Sachs is also expected to play a major role. The IPO is expected to raise about $10 billion with a valuation of at least $75 billion. By comparison, Google raised $1.9 billion in an IPO with a valuation of $23 billion back in 2004. Forbes

U.S. government invalidates potent Rambus patent The three patents - collectively known as the Barth patents - pertain to memory chips used in personal computers and are considered to be among Rambus' most valuable intellectual property. An appeals board at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office declared the patent invalid on January 24, according to a ruling posted on their website. Reuters

Massive Android malware op may have infected 5 million users The largest-ever Android malware campaign may have duped as many as 5 million users into downloading infected apps from Google's Android Market, Symantec said today. Dubbed "Android.Counterclank" by Symantec, the malware was packaged in 13 different apps from three different publishers... Computerworld

Five years with Blu-ray - part one Cast your collective minds back to mid 2006. I can't tell you much about that year, other than I'd just turned 20 years old. Wikipedia tells me Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death. Some bad stuff happened. Some good stuff happened. But the contextual relevance of 2006 is this was the year when the high definition formats HD-DVD and Blu-ray were released to the US market. TweakTown

Data privacy day: Social media 'private' data is fair game for e-discovery in court Microsoft Trustworthy Computing released data about how posting on social networking sites can impact more than online profiles and reputation; it can also cause negative consequences in the real world. All that data, even the allegedly 'private' social media data, is not private but is fair game as e-discovery in civil litigation. Network World

The Internet economy is set to double in the next 4 years, as 3bn people go online World leaders are currently congregating in Davos, Switzerland, for the 2012 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, as they try to find ways to kick-start the global economy. Two studies released at the forum profess to offer a glimmer of hope, and as you might've guessed, the Internet is at the heart of it. The Next Web

Remember when? The funniest old Microsoft ads There's nothing like a trip through a photo album to see how much things change. The world's most powerful software company wasn't always that way. Microsoft was born in 1975, founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Less than a decade later, hundreds of IBM clones had arrived that used Microsoft's DOS, and Microsoft was on its way. Business Insider

Kingdoms of Amalur's "Online Pass" continues a slippery slope for used games Review copies of Electronic Arts's Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning are starting to reach critics, who have made a surprising collective discovery: an insert containing a code to download a "House of Valor" content pack featuring "seven additional single player quests." Ars Technica

The world's first computer password? It was useless too If you're like most people, you're annoyed by passwords. You've got dozens to remember – some of them tortuously complex – and on any given day, as you read e-mails, send tweets, and order groceries online, you're bound to forget one, or at least mistype it. Wired

Wisconsin uses Microsoft settlement funds to buy iPads for schools The capital of Wisconsin is buying 600 iPads this spring and plans to buy another 800 this fall, all paid for using funds from the state's settlement with Microsoft related to consumer lawsuits... AppleInsider

How a physical copy of Bastion wound up in Afghanistan "He told me they had no plans of releasing a physical copy in the future, but if I gave him my address then he would see what he could do," one lucky Reddit user and Afghanistan-stationed United States Air Force officer wrote... Joystiq