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Businesses

When Patents Attack — the NPR Version 87

Posted by timothy from the official-office-suite-of-rent-seeking dept.
fermion writes "This American Life is running a story this week on Intellectual Ventures, a firm some consider the leader of the patent trolls. The story delves into the origins of the term patent troll and the rise of the patent troll industry. Much time is spent presenting Intellectual Ventures both as a patent troll firm and a legitimate business that allows helpless inventors to monetize patents. It is stipulated that Intellectual Ventures does not in fact sue anyone. It is also alleged that Intellectual Ventures creates many shell companies, presumably to hide such activity. Intellectual Ventures is compared to a Mafia protection racket that may never actually burn down a business that does not pay the dues, but does encourage such burning to occur."
Hardware Hacking

Japanese Military Invents Tumbling, Flying Sphere 156

Posted by Soulskill from the didn't-darth-vader-have-one-of-these dept.
thebchuckster writes "A Japanese developer has released a cool, new sphere that is billed as being able to go where humans can't. The sphere is 17-inches, features eight movable rudders, and can hover in the air for at least eight minutes. While reaching speeds of up to 37 miles per hour, the sphere deftly moves through the air without much effort. It doesn't take much to get it up in the air and moving, and it will be adept at going into tight areas."
Television

The Next Phase of Intelligent TVs Will Observe You 294

Posted by samzenpus from the unseen-mechanized-eye dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Japan based NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories (STRL) is testing an interface which observes TV viewers, determines their interest and provides information related to the TV program in accordance with the way they are watching it. UTAN (user technology assisted navigation) TV viewing interface, as it is called, has a camera mounted on the TV which photographs the viewer and estimates the viewer's degrees of interest, concentration, etc. The information is processed by a tablet PC and recommended information is shown to the viewer. It is possible to show individual interests as well, in case there are multiple viewers."
Microsoft

MS Wants Laws To Block Products Made By Software Pirates 617

Posted by Soulskill from the grasping-at-imported-straws dept.
kaptink writes with this quote from Groklaw: "Microsoft seems to be trying to get its own personal unfair competition laws passed state by state, so it can sue US companies who get parts from overseas companies who used pirated Microsoft software anywhere in their business. The laws allow Microsoft to block the US company from selling the finished product in the state and compel them to pay damages for what the overseas supplier did. So if a company overseas uses a pirated version of Excel, let's say, keeping track of how many parts it has shipped or whatever, and then sends some parts to General Motors or any large company to incorporate into the finished product, Microsoft can sue not the overseas supplier but General Motors, for unfair competition. So can the state's Attorney General. I kid you not. For piracy that was done by someone else, overseas. The product could be T shirts. It doesn't matter what it is, so long as it's manufactured with contributions from an overseas supplier, like in China, who didn't pay Microsoft for software that it uses somewhere in the business. It's the US company that has to pay damages, not the overseas supplier."
NASA

Submission + - Researchers Develop Super Batteries From Aerogel (inhabitat.com) 1

Submitted by
greenerd
greenerd writes: "Researchers from the University of Central Florida may have found the most efficient (and most bizarre) battery material yet – ‘frozen smoke’, also known as Aerogel. One of the world’s lightest solids, aerogel contains multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) which each one several thousands thinner than human hair. The researchers, Associate Professor Lei Zhai and Postdoctoral Associate Jianhua Zou, believe that this material could soon become the best energy storage material for capacitors and batteries."
Medicine

Engineer Designs His Own Heart Valve Implant 151

Posted by samzenpus from the when-you-want-something-done-right dept.
nametaken writes "In 2000, Tal Golesworthy, a British engineer, was told that he suffers from Marfan syndrome, a disorder of the connective tissue that often causes rupturing of the aorta. The only solution then available was the pairing of a mechanical valve and a highly risky blood thinner. To an engineer like Golesworthy, that just wasn't good enough. So he constructed his own implant that does the job better than the existing solution--and became the first patient to try it."

Comment Re:Lisp is cool... (Score 4, Funny) 330

by weav (#34115886) Attached to: Land of Lisp

WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE OUR SERVICE ORGANIZATION, PEASANT?

Sorry, old habits...

The 45 minute GC's ended with the first Generation-scavenging GC which may have come along after you game up on lispms...

Comment Re:AV Companies (Score 1) 135

by weav (#33694520) Attached to: FCC White Space Rules Favor Tech Industry

I am a venue frequency coordinator for a major sports league. This ruling is causing a LOT of worry for us. In a venue with 40 wideband channels for coaching, lots of OTA TV, plus the venue's own wireless mics, The little whitespace we have to work in now is getting awfully crowded. The notion of reserving two TV channels to work in at one of this league's games is absurd. We can only hope that we can ban the silly things from the entire premises out to the fence.

Comment Bypassing HR seems to work... (Score 3, Interesting) 207

by weav (#33403032) Attached to: Skipping Traditional Recruitment, Going Straight To the Source

My current boss put an ad on Craigslist which said send your CV and write a perl script that does [thing]. I did so. That turned into a 90-min. phone screen in which he grilled me technically, and then he set up an on-site interview. 5 people, 45 min. each, intense technical drilldown.

The hr person was annoyed that he'd gone to Craigslist (mgr. never told me to say otherwise...), but the mgr. found somebody who could do what he wanted.

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