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Patents

Submission + - Texas judge tosses out patent claim against Linux (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
netbuzz
netbuzz writes: "A federal judge in Texas, presiding over a district notorious for favoring patent trolls, has summarily dismissed all claims relating to a case brought by Uniloc USA against Rackspace for allegedly infringing upon Linux patents. Red Hat defended Rackspace in the matter and issued a press release saying: “In dismissing the case, Chief Judge Leonard Davis found that Uniloc’s claim was unpatentable under Supreme Court case law that prohibits the patenting of mathematical algorithms. This is the first reported instance in which the Eastern District of Texas has granted an early motion to dismiss finding a patent invalid because it claimed unpatentable subject matter.”"
IT

Submission + - Gender gap in tech salaries is all gone, Dice reports (infoworld.com)

Submitted by bobwrit
bobwrit writes: "The field of IT is notorious for being persistently male-dominated, but that doesn't mean women still suffer from a gender gap when it comes to pay.

In fact, the compensation gender gap has disappeared for tech workers, according to the latest salary survey from IT careers site Dice. Specifically, ever since 2009, average salaries have been equivalent for male and female tech professionals, the company reported on Tuesday — as long as you're comparing equal levels of experience and education and parallel job titles."
Google

Submission + - What an anti-Google antitrust case by the FTC may look like (cnet.com)

Submitted by
hessian
hessian writes: "It's not certain that Google will face a federal antitrust lawsuit by year's end. But if that happens, it seems likely to follow an outline sketched by Thomas Barnett, a Washington, D.C., lawyer on the payroll of Google's competitors.

Barnett laid out his arguments during a presentation here last night: Google is unfairly prioritizing its own services such as flight search over those offered by rivals such as Expedia, and it's unfairly incorporating reviews from Yelp without asking for permission.

"They systematically reinforce their dominance in search and search advertising," Barnett said during a debate on search engines and antitrust organized by the Federalist Society. "Google's case ought to have been brought a year or two ago.""

Submission + - Worlds first 9.6 imch 4K screen produced (examiner.com)

Submitted by jeremy85mai
jeremy85mai writes: Ortustech unveiled today that it had build a 9.6 inch display with a resolution of 3840x2160. This gives the display a resolution of 458.94 ppi. This is the smallest any manufacturer has been able to produce any 4K screens. While this is not the highest density display out there(Toshiba has displays that are around 500 PPI), it is still incredibly dense. The main advantage of screens this dense is either for a much smoother visual experience(reducing the need for Anti-Aliasing), as well as making the image displayed much more crisp and sharp.
Displays

Submission + - Ortustech constructs a 9.6 inch 4K display (examiner.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: From the article:
"Ortustech unveiled today that it had build a 9.6 inch display with a resolution of 3840x2160. This gives the display a resolution of 458.94 ppi. This is the smallest any manufacturer has been able to produce any 4K screens. While this is not the highest density display out there(Toshiba has displays that are around 500 PPI), it is still incredibly dense. The main advantage of screens this dense is either for a much smoother visual experience(reducing the need for Anti-Aliasing), as well as making the image displayed much more crisp and sharp."

Submission + - Android will surpass Windows by 2016 (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google's Android operating system will be used on more computing devices than Microsoft's Windows within four years, data from research firm Gartner showed on Wednesday, underlining the massive shift in the technology sector.

At the end of 2016, there will be 2.3 billion computers, tablets and smartphones using Android software, compared with 2.28 billion Windows devices, Gartner data showed.
Apple

Submission + - Apple "screwing" new iPhones out of simple DIY repair (arstechnica.com) 3

Submitted by
concealment
concealment writes: "Apple is making it more difficult for iPhone 4 owners to perform simple DIY repairs by replacing common Phillps head screws with a rare "pentalobe" screws. While newer iPhone 4s have included the screws from the factory, it is also Apple policy to replace any Phillips head screws with the new pentalobe screws whenever an iPhone 4 is taken in for service.

Wiens said that Apple had used a similar screw on early unibody MacBook Pros to secure the integrated battery, but later adopted a tri-wing screw for that purpose. The latest MacBook Airs, however, also use pentalobe screws on the outside case, making it difficult to perform what would otherwise be a simple swap of the SSD, for instance."
Open Source

Submission + - Red Hat Devs Working on ARM64 OpenJDK Port (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: Developers over at Red Hat are busy porting the OpenJDK to ARM’s latest 64bit architecture – the ARMv8, also known as the A64. The current OpenJDK ARM situation is rather unsatisfactory as there for the current 32-bit ARM processors, there are two version of VM for OpenJDK – HotSpot; one being a proprietary version by Oracle and another one free. The free version comes with a just-in-time (JIT) compiler that has quite a smaller footprint, which can’t compete with Oracle’s JIT. To avoid a similar situation for the 64-bit platform, the developers are working on an entirely free software.
Space

Submission + - 84 Million Stars in this 9 Gigapixel Image (vice.com)

Submitted by
Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: "Looking up into the dark autumn sky in New York City, I’m still dumbfounded on the nights that I’m able to spot more than a dozen stars. The city’s light pollution is actually so great here that when I visit rural places I’m kept up at night by a sort of analog version of the internet: stargazing. But now it seems a single photograph could contain more stars than a night in the countryside ever could.

At the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in Chile, site of the VLT (Very Large Telescope) array, the VISTA telescope (Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy) has captured a picture of unprecedented properties. The beast of an image, weighing in at nine-gigapixels (9,000 megapixels, which would print to about 23 × 30 feet) is now available in an interactive, zoomable format via ESO’s website."

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Alternatives for startups when domains are already registered 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Recently we've been trying to start a small company in Argentina. When trying to acquire the domains we need (.com and .com.ar) we found that they were already registered but not in use. We contacted the owners, which are companies or individuals that buy and sell domains for a living.

They said that .com would be a six figure domain (!), which is pretty impressive given that it's not a recognized brand or anything, it's a simple english noun.

On the other hand, for the .com.ar (which is actually free!!) we were asked around 2000.

We think this is outrageous. There has to be some legal way for small enterpreneurs to be able to start their own business without having to pay to these people.

Maybe if we register the name then we can request to be given priority over the domain?

Has any of you ever had to deal with a situation like this?
Patents

Submission + - Apple loses UK tablet design appeal versus Samsung (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by bobwrit
bobwrit writes: From the article:
"A judge at the High Court in London had originally ruled in July that the look of Samsung's Galaxy Tab computers was not too similar to designs registered in connection with the iPad.

He said at the time that Samsung's devices were not as "cool" because they lacked Apple's "extreme simplicity".

Apple still needs to run ads saying Samsung had not infringed its rights."
Android

Submission + - LG Nexus 4 Leaked/Unveiled (examiner.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: From the article:

"Earlier today, several sources revealed the specs and leaked images of the next Google Nexus device. This device will most likely be the launch vehicle for the next iteration of the Android Operating System. which will likely be a small incremental upgrade over a larger one. The device has a 4.75 inch screen, but it also has a smaller top bezel than the Galaxy Nexus does. It'll contain a quad core Qualcomm processor, and 2 GB of ram to supplement that. It does have a different rear design, which takes from the Nexus 7's back. You can click on the image of the device above to see more of it's design."
Android

Submission + - LG Nexus 4 Leaked (examiner.com)

Submitted by bobwrit
bobwrit writes: From the article:
"Earlier today, several sources revealed the specs and leaked images of the next Google Nexus device. This device will most likely be the launch vehicle for the next iteration of the Android Operating System. which will likely be a small incremental upgrade over a larger one. The device has a 4.75 inch screen, but it also has a smaller top bezel than the Galaxy Nexus does. It'll contain a quad core snapdragon processor, and 2 GB of ram to supplement that. It does have a different rear design, which takes from the Nexus 7's back. You can click on the image of the device above to see more of it's design."

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