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Western Digital is so scared of media lawyers its crippling its own products - not letting drives that are designed to share files across the Internet actually do this with many A/V file types. A spokeswoman says don't blame the hard drive - it's the software's fault! But the software is, um, made by Western Digital. Here's how you can work around it, and these are the file types that are impacted.

Meanwhile Congress is obediently moving to make the severe civil penalties against ordinary citizens caught sharing files even harsher with a new bill that surely has Hollywood lobbyists licking their chops.

The Internet is coming to a commercial jetliner near you - token access on JetBlue, more meaningful access on several other airlines. Yes, we've seen this movie before.

Who's that in the chat room? It could be a Russian bottie imitating a saucy stranger, trying to sweet-talk you out of your personal info in hopes of swiping your identity.

Adult FriendFinder is in hot water with the FCC for naughty pop-up ads. Probably doesn't put too much of a damper on that billion dollar sale.

CompUSA is shutting down its stores. Why is everyone so psyched about this? Looks like a lot of people hated CompUSA all along. The haters even took over the dictionary.

Shocker! Valleywag publishes a work of pure fiction. Was drunken posting from a holiday party to blame? Or widespread hatred of the site's editor? If you want to trick them with your own fictitious story, Scoble has it down to a science.

Firefox forecasts the weather. Looks like a giant gray box is heading for Dayton.

A USB Microscope for the young scholar in your life. To get your discount, follow the links above and enter the promo code WEBBALERT at checkout to get $10 off any order over $50 and $5 off an order between $25 and $50. We've received a last minute reprieve - the code is now valid until December 31st! Happy shopping!