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Samsung buys set top box maker Boxee. | 269 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Going Forth for the Fourth on the 4th
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, July 02 2013 @ 07:59 PM EDT
http://www.restorethefourth.net/ < p>

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Why I’m not paying the Troll Toll [Lodsys]
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, July 02 2013 @ 08:18 PM EDT
My company TMSOFT was recently sued by Lodsys in the eastern district of Texas.

I initially thought I was being sued for using a hyperlink in my White Noise application (see below). I know now I’m being sued because the CEO of Lodsys didn’t like what I publicly said about their company. That’s right. I’m being sued because I called Lodsys a “patent troll” on my podcast, Tech 411.

[...]

I’ve been fortunate to have Dan Ravicher from PUBPAT (pubpat.org) represent my company pro bono in this matter. Pubpat is a not-for-profit organization that has the mission to protect freedom in the patent system. He’s a champion of the little guy who has offered to help app developers and small companies that have been targeted by Lodsys.

[...]

Dan contacted the lawyer for Lodsys, who actually admitted to him that this wasn’t about money. It was about the things I said on my tech podcast and blog. During that time, the CEO of Lodsys, Mark Small, was getting a lot of negative media coverage and even wrote on his blog that he received several death threats. Mark obviously didn’t like the comments I made about his company and retaliated by sending a patent infringement letter.

Todd Moore

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Steinway Sold for a Song
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, July 02 2013 @ 10:12 PM EDT
Google News will show many more equally painful puns on the sad demise of a once proud Family Firm now short of cash.

Deutsche Welle   HongKong Standard

On a sour note the shareholders are dissing the price, marketwatch.com

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Proton-M Rocket Failure
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, July 02 2013 @ 11:26 PM EDT
Video and story at Russia Today

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    Poetic Justice
    Authored by: drorh on Wednesday, July 03 2013 @ 07:15 AM EDT
    With all the unfairness of Microsoft's tactics against
    Netscape, it is rather a poetic justice that starting with
    Internet Explorer 11, the browser would identify itself with
    appName set to "Netscape" and product set to "Gecko" (the
    Firefox rendering engine). No, this time it is not because of
    the regulator but because of the market...

    For the details see
    http://www.nczonline.net/blog/2013/07/02/internet-explorer-
    11-dont-call-me-ie/

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    Hamburg court: GPL source and binary versions must be equal
    Authored by: tiger99 on Wednesday, July 03 2013 @ 07:45 AM EDT
    The H

    A very sensible ruling! Thanks to Harald for watching out for GPL violations and taking action when needed.

    According to a recent ruling of the District Court of Hamburg, sources released with a GPLv2-licensed program must have the same version as the corresponding binaries. The court ruled that hardware manufacturer Fantec had acted negligently in providing older versions of source code for some of its firmware, rather than providing the actual sources that the binaries were originally compiled from. The company was sued by Harald Welte's gpl-violations.org representing the iptables developers of the netfilter project.
    I have seen GPL violations like this before, such as some Epson drivers where the supplied source code was syntactically incorrect and could not be compiled. I think it was just carelessness rather than malice, and no doubt would have been settled out of court if someone had complained, but the problem went away as the CUPS dveelopers, I think, took over, and the Epson drivewr is no longer needed.

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    Zynga to follow Nokia?
    Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, July 03 2013 @ 12:32 PM EDT
    Sources are reporting that their new CEO is a former
    Microsoft exec.

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    The info Motorola gets from your phone.
    Authored by: squib on Wednesday, July 03 2013 @ 01:20 PM EDT
    Motorola Is Listening

    Ben Lincoln has done an interesting analyse of the information that his phone sends back to Motorola and what protocols it uses for that purpose.

    To my mind it is another case, where even if, the average user, wades through all the terms of service and user agreements he will still remain unaware of how much is being sent back and so won't realise he can turn some things off.

    It does indirectly demonstrate too another advantage of buying a phone without carrier contract so being able to keep a clean Android version on it.

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    Summer Rerun: Why Don’t Americans Take More Vacations? Blame It on Independence Day
    Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, July 03 2013 @ 01:29 PM EDT
    Since I have managed to come in on the last act of Gotterdammerung and am still trying to find the libretto, I’ve been in what little spare time I have reading history, particularly on propaganda. One must read book is by Alex Carey, Taking the Risk Out of Democracy. Carey taught psychology in Australia, and he depicts the US as the breeding ground for the modern art of what is sometimes more politely called the engineering of consent.

    [...]

    While I am not telling you to skip Fourth of July fireworks, it might be time to recognize key events that help us look at our history with fresh eyes. Perhaps we should quietly celebrate what we still have of the America our founders envisaged, say on the anniversary of the signing of the articles of Confederation (a protracted affair, with the last signature affixed on March 1, 1781) or their replacement with the Constitution on March 4, 1789. But regardless of how individuals go about it, the more we recognize how cultural memes are created and propagated, the more hope we have of freeing ourselves from them.

    Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    • Aristotle? - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, July 03 2013 @ 03:14 PM EDT
    • Leisure time - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, July 03 2013 @ 05:41 PM EDT
    Samsung buys set top box maker Boxee.
    Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, July 03 2013 @ 02:36 PM EDT
    Where does this position Samsung in the good firm, bad firm equation?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23170757

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    Not so Anonymous
    Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, July 03 2013 @ 05:24 PM EDT
    9 slides

    http://extra.globo.com/noticias/rio/fabrica-de-sao-goncalo-ja-produz-cerca-de-80 0-mascaras-por-dia-para-manifestacoes-8744832.html

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    Dotcom vs Prime Minister
    Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, July 03 2013 @ 06:05 PM EDT
    3 July Kim Dotcom appeared before the parliamentary Select Committee hearing submissions on a bill to amend legislation to give the GCSB the right to spy on New Zealand citizens.

    Some   local   coverage.

    More   radio   clips.

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    Live real-time feed monitoring celebrating crowds in Egypt
    Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, July 03 2013 @ 08:47 PM EDT

    real time feed

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    Intellectual ventures wraps self in flag, hypocrisy, bad science
    Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, July 03 2013 @ 10:25 PM EDT
    http://www.intellectualventures.com/index.php/insights/archives/invention-
    in-america

    Sure, I believe and expect most, possibly even PJ, to believe in the Apple
    pie...but I suspect IV has done more to prevent inventors from realizing
    dreams than the other way around.

    Turning an invention into a bsiness is very different from inventing
    itself...the last "lone" inventor I ran into really thought he had
    something, a
    better electric car, but the honda civic hybrid I was driving at the time did a

    much better job of the same thing.

    And trolling...well, that really POISONS the market...Especially with
    essentially frivolous patents.


    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    • LOL - Authored by: albert on Thursday, July 04 2013 @ 07:53 PM EDT
    LED Patentee shines light on Apple, Samsung etc
    Authored by: complex_number on Thursday, July 04 2013 @ 02:35 AM EDT
    link

    I'm confused (and not for the first time). Imagine this situation.

    I'm a small electronics manufacturer and I buy quite legally some components from a wholesaler. Then I design and put together a bit of kit and start selling it. I've not made and components. all I've done is create something that works from off the shelf parts.

    Do I really need to get my company lawyer to sign patent agreements with EVERY company that may hold patents on the components I have bought and used in my bit of kit?

    Remember that all the parts (eg a LED) were bought off the shelf. Presumably the maker of the parts was licensed to make the components in the first place so why can the patent holders come effectively 'double dipping' and claim money from me? Any deals will push up the price of my bit of kit. It may even make it impossible to sell and my company could cease trading.

    What then? The patent holder could (after a court judgement) hold a lien on my business and then end up owning the right to my bit of kit. Talk about a stealth takeover...!!!!.

    Can this be right or legal?

    Answers in 32pt Sans Serif on a pin=head please. :)

    Finally, can it be right that a patent holder can dictate who can use a component that contains their invention? If I were 'Joe Public' and bought say a LED from Radio Shack, could Boston Uni dictate what I could use that LED for? could they demand royalties if I made something and sold it to a friend?

    Yours, confused as ever.

    ---
    Ubuntu & 'apt-get' are not the answer to Life, The Universe & Everything which is of course, "42" or is it 1.618?

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    NSA recruiting session ..
    Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 04 2013 @ 07:13 AM EDT
    Interesting audio recording. I wonder if she knew she was being recorded .. link

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    Listen to these students grill the NSA
    Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 04 2013 @ 08:11 AM EDT
    WHAT we are all adversaries ? GERMANY IS what 70+ years after world war 2?

    and who the hell is a "customer"

    "is this job for liers"

    can we make this girl really grilling them head of the nsa...
    OHHHHHHH YOU AMERICANS NEED A REAL REALITY CHECK THIS IS GOING VIRAL.....


    WOW listen to this girl

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    Manning Prosecution Rests & Drops a Charge
    Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 04 2013 @ 08:16 AM EDT
    The government ended its case against Pfc. Bradley Manning on Tuesday by dropping its controversial claim that disclosures to WikiLeaks aided a "classified" enemy.

    Prosecutors had accused Manning of "aiding the enemy," in particular, al-Qaida, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, and a "classified enemy." With legal scholars stumped over the term, a military spokeswoman eventually explained that the concept referred to "the means and methods of collection that the government has employed to" determine that its "enemy is in receipt of certain compromised classified information." As the government rested its case Tuesday, however, Maj. Ashden Fein announced a new plan to drop the classified enemy charge.

    "The United States has not presented nor does it intend to present, since the government rested, the evidence that was offered during the bill of particulars of a classified enemy," the lead prosecutor said.

    Adam Klasfeld, Courthouse News

    ---

    see also:

    US government rests its case in Bradley Manning WikiLeaks trial
    Ed Pilkington, the Guardian

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    NASA images: Desktop wallpaper from outer space
    Authored by: JamesK on Thursday, July 04 2013 @ 08:20 AM EDT
    Desktop wallpaper is one of the best ways to personalize your computer. And one of the best topics for desktop wallpaper is space. These 30 images are from NASA and their associate agencies and research organizations.

    ---
    The following program contains immature subject matter.
    Viewer discretion is advised.

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    The Origin Of The World's Dumbest Idea
    Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 04 2013 @ 12:17 PM EDT
    Another sign of a re-think of the dominant neo-liberal economic outlook, which
    promises so much and delivers so little - at least to the 90-99%.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2013/06/26/the-origin-of-the-worlds-dum
    best-idea-milton-friedman/

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    Happy Birthday America !
    Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 04 2013 @ 12:21 PM EDT
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2ALNd3kIH0

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    UK National Archives updates Open Government Licence
    Authored by: tiger99 on Thursday, July 04 2013 @ 01:09 PM EDT
    Link

    Nothing to be concerned about, the data is still free.

    The Archive's news item identifies two particular changes to the licence since version 1: a new section headed "Non-endorsement" specifies that re-used information cannot be presented as if the new version of the information has any official status or endorsement from the department from where it originated. Secondly, an OGL symbol has been developed as an easy way to identify information that can be used under the terms of the licence.
    Just tidying up a couple of loose ends, and perhaps a minor improvement, the symbol. It is right that as much as possible of government data is made available freely, after all the taxpayers have paid for it to be gathered, so we should be able to get free access to it, where privacy and security considerations permit. At least, updating the license does show a continuing committment to keep the data free, which is as much as we could hope for from any government, who are generally occupied with what they see as far more important things.

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    France 'has vast data surveillance' - Le Monde report
    Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 04 2013 @ 03:42 PM EDT
    BBC Link

    France's foreign intelligence service intercepts computer and telephone data on a vast scale, like the controversial US Prism programme, according to the French daily Le Monde.
    The data is stored on a supercomputer at the headquarters of the DGSE intelligence service, the paper says.

    It seems that government acting illegally is a worldwide practice.

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    • Le Monde report - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 04 2013 @ 04:17 PM EDT
    CBC: Twitter to target ads using your web history
    Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 04 2013 @ 04:09 PM EDT
    Twitter to target ads using your web history

    Oh, joy.

    Twitter announced a new advertising strategy on Wednesday that would track data on a user's computer, such as browser history and contacts' information.

    The "tailored ads" function allows the social networking service to use third-party data to display ads in your Twitter feed that more closely match what you do on the internet other than use Twitter.

    (...)

    The article isn't clear on the details, but it sounds like the Twitter app will "harvest" your web browser history and send it off to Twitter where they can re-sell it to advertising companies.

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    My IP is worth bazzilions ...
    Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 04 2013 @ 06:37 PM EDT

    And for an alternative scenario http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mag azine-23179103. People who have made a difference.

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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