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Education

Submission + - Publishers sue university over electronic reserves (publishers.org)

Submitted by ecklesweb
ecklesweb writes: Three academic publishers, with the backing of the Association of American Publishers, have sued Georgia State University over the use of electronic reserves and other electronic means of distributing course readings. They've named the president, provost, and library and IT directors in the suit alleging massive copyright infringement. The publishers are seeking an injunction and attorneys fees.
Education

Industry Group Sponsors College Course To Create Fake Blog 124

Posted by kdawson from the paid-me-to-do-it dept.
Scott Jaschik writes "At Hunter College, professors are debating the ethics of a course in which an industry group paid for a class to develop a fake student who would write a fake blog to discourage other students from buying knockoff products. The controversy involves both commercial interference with academic freedom and the ethics of 'guerilla marketing.'"
Government

Submission + - BIONIC legs assist US Marine to walk again

Submitted by
Like2Byte
Like2Byte writes: "There's an interesting story on CNN where a US Marine that lost both his legs in Iraq is now able to walk again by implementing BLUETOOTH technology to coordinate his leg's movement. The article explains how the two legs communicate to keep the man in motion. An except from the article: "...Computer chips in each leg send signals to motors in the artificial joints so the knees and ankles move in a coordinated fashion. Bleill's set of prosthetics [legs] have Bluetooth receivers strapped to the ankle area. The Bluetooth device on each leg tells the other leg what it's doing, how it's moving, whether walking, standing or climbing steps, for example.""
Networking

Submission + - Double Amputee Walks Again, Thanks to Bluetooth

Submitted by Vexler
Vexler writes: As an unlikely use of a communications protocol, an Iraq veteran who is a double amputee is walking again, thanks to a set of Bluetooth-enabled receivers strategically placed around his artificial ankles. These devices coordinate with each other to make sure that he is using the right force and making the right strides as he walks forward, and also help him to walk longer before he tires out. Nice to see what we are doing to help these soldiers.
Businesses

Submission + - Worker Prematurely Burns Bridges at Architect Firm

Submitted by phptard
phptard writes: When Marie Lupe Cooley, 41, of Jacksonville, Fla., saw a help-wanted ad in the newspaper for a position that looked suspiciously like her current job — and with her boss's phone number listed — she assumed she was about to be fired. So, police say, she went to the architectural office where she works late Sunday night and erased 7 years' worth of drawings and blueprints, estimated to be worth $2.5 million.
Education

Submission + - Student's Expulsion Over Facebook Photo Reversed 1

Submitted by __aahuqu9051
__aahuqu9051 writes: Following up Friday's article about a student being expelled for writing a 'threatening' photo description on Facebook, it seems once the pressure of a lawsuit backed by FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) came against the Board of Regents, they have backed down. Barnes claims that proper disciplinary processes were not followed for his expulsion and is also asking reimbursement for expenses associated with moving to another university and enrolling there for one semester. Yesterday, the Board of Regents reversed the expulsion of Hayden Barnes. It is unknown at this time whether or not Barnes plans to re-enroll and continue at VSU.
Programming

Submission + - Ohloh ranks the world's coders (venturebeat.com)

Submitted by
Bayscribe
Bayscribe writes: "Ohloh, a company that ranks the nation's top open source coders, is opening its service to let other developer teams track and rank their own teams. It's the latest move by Ohloh, a Bellevue, WA company that already distributes its coder profiles and related data to about 5,000 open source sites. The Ohloh profiles can serve as advertising for these sites, because the profiles show how active their open source development projects are.
Ohloh analyzes open source code and tracks the updates each coder makes. It assigns them a "KudoRank" to each coder between 1 (poor) through 10 (best). Now its letting the coders advertise their ranks and other data on their own sites."
Education

Submission + - software monitors college athletes social networks

Submitted by ecklesweb
ecklesweb writes: A new piece of software called YouDiligence from MVP Sports Media Training was unveiled at an NCAA conference in Nashville this weekend. The software searches Facebook and MySpace pages of college athletes for "up to 500 objectionable words and phrases ranging from profanity to slang used to describe drugs. If it finds anything, it sends an e-mail alert to a designated athletics official containing a link to the offending page," according to an article (no subscription required) in the Chronicle for Higher Education.
Education

Submission + - third graders design their own laptops

Submitted by ecklesweb
ecklesweb writes: The Morning News has a gallery of kid-designed laptops made out of construction paper by third graders at a Montessori school. There's also an interview that talks about the kid-initiated project. The designs are interesting because they show how kids expect to use and interact with technology. It's also a peek into how much 8 year olds are aware of and influenced by pop culture...
Wireless (Apple)

Submission + - iPhone brings down Duke wifi network

Submitted by ecklesweb
ecklesweb writes: Inside Higher Education has a story that the iPhone is too popular at Duke. In nine incidents since Friday — the most recent Tuesday afternoon — as many as 30 of university's wireless routers have been knocked out of service for 10 minute intervals, after being flooded with as many as 18,000 requests per second that are believed to be coming from the iPhone's built-in 802.11b/g wi-fi adapter.
The Internet

12 Laws Every Blogger Needs to Know 100

Posted by CmdrTaco from the that-means-you-right dept.
An anonymous reader noted a nice piece discussing 12 laws bloggers need to know which includes explanations of matters including domain name trademarks, deep linking, fair use of thumbnails and so on. It's worth a read for most anyone who puts words on this here interweb.
HP

Could HP Beat Moore's Law? 176

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i'll-believe-it-when-it-boots dept.
John H. Doe writes "A number type of nano-scale architecture developed in the research labs of Hewlett-Packard could beat Moore's Law and advance the progress of of microprocessor development three generations in one hit. The new architecture uses a design technique that will enable chip makers to pack eight times as many transistors as is currently possible on a standard 45nm field programmable gate array (FPGA) chip.""
Sun Microsystems

Submission + - GPL to shine on Solaris

Submitted by
kspiteri
kspiteri writes: "eWeek is claiming that Sun will dual license Solaris using the GPL3 once the license is ready. As arstechnica points out, it seems unlikely that code mingling with Linux will be facilitated, especially considering that there are no plans to migrate Linux from GPL2 to GPL3."
The Media

Submission + - Which phone caused the fire? Help solve mystery.

Submitted by
netbuzz
netbuzz writes: "It's the morning after a worldwide press blitz about the so-called "exploding cell phone" that seriously injured a California man. And despite the voluminous headlines and TV chatter we still don't know who made the phone or what model it was — because fire officials refuse to tell. Correcting this wrong seems to be a perfect opportunity for "community journalism" to shine. Network World is inviting any and all to call their own cell-phone suppliers and ask the simple question: "Was my phone involved?" Let the magazine know what you learn.

http://www.networkworld.com/community3/?q=node/105 05"
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Tennessee taxes your illicit substances

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: No, Really! you had better get your tax stamp for your smoke & shine...

From Time mag. via CNN, this story is both amusing and bemusing.
our government in action.

              "Tennessee's Unauthorized Substances Tax requires anyone in possession of a certain quantity of contraband to buy a tax stamp and affix it to the drug."

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,157 8857,00.html?cnn=yes

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