The Washington Times has an opinion piece that takes a shot at German Chancellor Angela Merkel's administration over what they are calling a proposed "Drudge Tax." The reference is to conservative Matt Drudge's popular web site The Drudge Report, which aggregates news from all over the web. While the flavor of The Drudge Report may not sit well with many, the concern with a new proposal being pushed by Merkel's administration is that it will levy taxes on web sites that aggregate content.

This morning Reclaim Your Game tweeted that EA and BioWare continue to use the SecuROM DRM scheme for its games. The latest to use it is Mass Effect 3, but it appears to be integrated tightly into EA's Origin client. EA has insisted in the past that it is not using SecuROM in its software releases on PC.

The White House passed along an advisory that the next meeting of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) will take place on March 9 at 10:00 a.m. EST. The meeting will run until 3:00 p.m. at the "Root Room" of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington D.C. While the focus of this meeting is not necessarily exciting, it is interesting to see how policy makers, academics, and government officials approach science and technology.

While the Digital Economy Act was passed in the UK last year, the UK government can't force ISP's in the region to do anything beyond a letter writing campaign against those accused of infringement. The problem lies in the fact that the government needs to make certain changes to the law before it goes into full affect.

Verizon Wireless announced the launch of a new wireless home broadband service geared towards rural areas that want something a little more powerful than DSL. The service is called HomeFusion, and offers wireless broadband via a $200 cylindrical antenna (the labor is free) that is mounted on the outside of your house. While the speeds sounds decent enough - 5 to 12 megabits per second for downloads and 2 to 5 megabits for uploads - Verizon's biggest barrier might be the data caps it puts on the service. 

Normally when we write about a broadband service provider it's usually to report some horrendous thing they are doing to their customers like throttling their connections or charging them extra for data usage. 

Video game console makers Microsoft and Sony are squaring off against enthusiast hackers, academics, and organizations such as the EFF who would like to make the act of jailbreaking legal. There is already an exception in place that allows the iPhone to be jailbroken, so supporters of gaining similar allowances for the Xbox 360 and PS3 are urging the U.S. Copyright Office to make these exceptions. The copyright office is currently accepting public input comments on the subject until Friday, and will likely make a decision soon shortly thereafter.

If you were looking to get your hands on a Raspberry Pi on launch day, you are out of luck. Within hours of announcing that the Model B version of the credit card-sized computers was available for pre-order, it sold out. The Raspberry Pi Foundation chose two UK resellers - Premier Farnell and RS Components - who have closed pre-orders in favor of taking your email so it can inform you when more are in stock,

Epic Games revealed its plans for the Game Developers Conference (GDC) which will include a preview of Unreal Engine 4 game engine technology, planned press sessions, and participation in various panels and discussion. Epic Games Design Director Cliff Bleszinski will also serve as the host for the Game Developer Choice Awards.

According to this Techland report, Pakistan’s military is building its own homegrown version of the iPad. The project is apparently a joint effort by the military using Pakistani engineering and Chinese hardware to be sold to consumers in the country. The device is being developed at an air force base in Kamra in northern Pakistan, alongside defense projects.

The East Texas patent case that had more than a few technology companies (and other more traditional business that faced lawsuits) freaking out, has fallen apart for the guy that brought it to court. The case came to a dramatic conclusion Thursday when a jury ruled that the key patent in the case was invalid.

Game Developer David Braben (Elite creator) tells Eurogamer that the consumer version of the Raspberry Pi device (a $25 - $35 credit-card sized computer designed to give children of all economic backgrounds the ability to learn important computer skills - will be made available to the public in the third quarter of this year. A pre-order system for the developer version of the Raspberry Pi will be unveiled in the near future, Braben tells Eurogamer.

iRobot makes Roomba, the little circular robot that vacuums your house on its own. But you probably didn't know that that same company makes robots for the military and has done so for quite some time. In fact, iRobot created the PackBot, a robot that the military uses to dispose of bombs. According to Techland, the latest robot created for the military is called "Warrior," and is controlled using an Xbox controller.

According to new research by the Boston Consulting Group, the Internet economy among G-20 nations is expected to nearly double by 2016, reaching an estimated $4.2 trillion (up from $2.3 trillion in 2010). In addition to that astounding figure is the projection that nearly half of the planet's population will be connected to the Internet — with 3 billion users in 2016, up from 1.9 billion in 2010.

The Directors Guild of America issued a statement on Friday about SOPA and PIPA - in conjunction with the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States, Its Territories and Canada (IATSE), International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), and Screen Actors Guild (SAG).

First this collective of Hollywood interest groups attempted to put a happy face on a bad situation:

An interesting story on The Hill points out that U.S. President Barack Obama faces a tough choice if the Stop Online Piracy or Protect IP Acts are passed by lawmakers because he has a vested interest in both Silicon Valley and the entertainment industry - two segments of the business community that heavily contributed to his 2008 campaign and continue to support him in 2012.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation announced via its blog that it has begun the manufacturing process for its ARM GNU/Linux machine in Taiwan and China. Besides citing prohibitive UK taxes on electronic parts (there's no tax on products already assembled and shipped into the country), the group chose manufacturers in Asia because the turnaround will be three weeks - as opposed to thirteen weeks.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has announced that it will listen to a handful of experts on January 18.

In a pre-Consumer Electronic Show interview with VentureBeat, Gary Shapiro, chief executive and president of the Consumer Electronics Association, says that he is not happy with the way the Stop Online Piracy Act is being rammed through the Senate. The man at the top of the trade group representing the electronics industry adds that SOPA is "shocking."

As pointed out by our very own Beemoh, The United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense wants to update its military simulations with the latest first-person shooter technology. This, they say, will focus the concentration of soldiers that train using the software.

Lawmakers that support SOPA can say that they haven't been bought and paid for by special interest groups, but an article on MapLight shows that the 32 sponsors of the bill have received four times more campaign contributions from the entertainment industry than from tech companies that oppose it.

AT&T has officially announced that its merger plan with T-Mobile is pushing up daises, but it also takes a few shots at the government for running interference to kill the deal. The $39 billion deal with T-Mobile parent company - Germany-based Deutsche Telekom - fell apart after government regulators from the FCC and the Justice Department took AT&T to task over what the company claimed the deal would accomplish. The Justice Department sued to block the deal in late August, calling it anti-competitive and warning that  it could raise consumer prices.

Eurogamer has launched game streaming on its site today, as part of a new relationship with video game streaming service Gaikai. Eurogamer and Gaikai have partnered to provide free streaming game content, with such AAA titles as Crysis 2, Magicka, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, and FIFA 12 available right now. More titles will be added to the list in "the near future."

Square Enix has revealed details on the extent of the hack that we reported on earlier this week. Square Enix confirmed that up to 1.8 million customers in Japan and the U.S. could be affected by the attack on its member service that took place earlier this week. While personal information may have been compromised, the Final Fantasy maker says that no financial information was stolen because the servers contained no credit card or billing information. They also noted that servers in Europe were not comprised.

In the late 1990's and early 2000's a politician proposing an internet sales tax would have been ridden out on a rail. It used to be that lawmakers were scared of the subject. Now even retail associations - some of which represent huge internet companies - say they support the idea. One of those trade groups, the Consumer Electronics Association, has changed sides this week.

According to this Ars Technica report, Apple has allied itself with a known patent troll to take out its enemies. The company has had some covert dealings with Digitude Innovations, a company that enjoys being paid in patents so it can beat the hell out of companies in court.

As we mentioned last week Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Darrell Issa introduced an alternative bill to SOPA and Protect IP that would put the power of fighting so-called rogue web sites into the hands of the International Trade Commission. The OPEN Act (which stands for Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act) focuses on interrupting the flow of funds to web sites that are proven to be trafficking in counterfeit goods or copyright materials.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings says that he sees an "arms race" in the streaming entertainment sector that his company currently dominates, and the biggest competition they face is Time Warner's HBO Go.

"The competitor we fear most is HBO Go,” Hastings said this week at the UBS media conference in New York. "HBO is becoming more Netflix-like and we’re becoming more HBO-like. The two of us will compete for a very long time."

UK secretary of state for education Michael Gove came out in support of the call for computer science to be part of the National Curriculum. Gove made his comments while talking to students at Catmose College about information technologies in schools.

"What we should have is computer science in the future, and how it fits into the curriculum is something that we need to talk to scientists, to experts in coding, and to young people about, to make sure that that part of what happens in schools which deal with technology and computing is relevant," Gove said.

New data from Pew Research Center finds that young adults are using the Internet as a distraction - a distinction television use to have among that particular age group. A majority of young American adults are using the Internet for "fun" and to "kill time," according to a new report by Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. But television isn't the only victim according to the data - video game console time is also being affected by Internet use, according to the data.