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Comment Re:patent vs opensource (Score 1) 340

by Rob T Firefly (#25625717) Attached to: Inventor Open Sources "TV-B-Gone," and Why

How would making your product open-source versus going the traditional patent route increase your sales? I understand that it helps to improve the product, but wouldn't this also allow other companies to sell the improved product as well?

A) He's not looking to increase sales. As has been noted here and elsewhere, Mitch doesn't do what he does to get rich. He works to support his activism pursuits, of which making people question their dependence on television is one.
2) He's using Creative Commons, which offers distinct licenses for free non-commercial use, hacking, and improvement vs. commercial use. I imagine he'll go that route in order to keep things free yet avoid commercial knockoffs.
Earth

Strong Methane Emissions On the Siberian Shelf 582

Posted by kdawson from the carbon-dioxide-times-twenty dept.
rrohbeck writes "The Independent reports brand-new results of high concentrations of methane — 100x normal — above the sea surface over the Siberian continental shelf. A large number of methane plumes have been discovered bubbling up from the sea floor. This is probably due to methane clathrate, buried under the sea floor before the last ice age, breaking up as higher water temperatures melt the permafrost that had contained it."
Space

Chinese Astronauts Complete First Spacewalk 310

Posted by timothy from the awesome-cgi dept.
As_I_Please writes "At 8:40AM (GMT) this morning, Chinese astronaut Zhai Zhigang successfully spent 18 minutes in a tethered spacewalk outside the spacecraft Shenzhou 7. This is an important step in China's goal of building an orbiting space station and sending astronauts to the moon."
The Courts

Jack Thompson Disbarred 522

Posted by timothy from the it-burns-it-burns dept.
Sockatume writes "The Florida Supreme Court has approved Judge Dava Tunis' recommendations for the permanent disbarment of John B. "Jack" Thompson, with no leave to reapply and $43,675.35 in disciplinary costs. The ruling is a step up from the enhanced disbarment that had been suggested by the prosecution, which would have forbidden him from reapplying for ten years. Thompson has 30 days to appeal the ruling before the disbarment is permanent. Thompson responds to the ruling."
Security

US Responsible For the Majority of Cyber Attacks 205

Posted by CmdrTaco from the we're-number-one-we're-number-one dept.
Amber G5 writes "SecureWorks published the locations of the computers from which the greatest number of cyber attacks were attempted against its clients in 2008. The United States topped the list with 20.6 million attempted attacks originating from computers within the country, and China ran second with 7.7 million attempted attacks emanating from computers within its borders. This was followed by Brazil with over 166,987 attempted attacks, South Korea with 162,289, Poland with 153,205, Japan with 142,346, Russia with 130,572, Taiwan with 124,997, Germany with 110,493, and Canada with 107,483."
The Internet

Scam-Linked ISP Intercage / Atrivo Gets Shut Out 102

Posted by timothy from the don't-let-the-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out dept.
alphadogg writes with this excerpt from Network World: "The lifeline linking notorious service provider Intercage to the rest of the Internet has been severed. Intercage, which has also done business under the name Atrivo, was knocked offline late Saturday night when the last upstream provider connecting it to the Internet's backbone, Pacific Internet Exchange, terminated Intercage's service. Intercage president Emil Kacperski said Pacific did not tell him why his company had been knocked offline, but he believes it was in response to pressure from Spamhaus, a volunteer-run antispam group, which has been highly critical of Intercage's business practices."
Patents

EU Patent Staff Go On Strike 116

Posted by timothy from the stop-exploiting-me dept.
h4rm0ny writes "Last Friday, staff at the European Patent Office went on strike. They protested outside for several hours and issued a statement claiming that 'the organisation is decentralising and focusing on granting as many patents as possible to gain financially from fees generated.' They also declared this as being disastrous for innovation and that their campaign was not for better wages, but for better quality patents. Meanwhile, an article on it discusses the US's own approach to dealing with the increasing flood of patent applications: a community patent project to help identify prior art. It might sound like a grass-roots scheme, and maybe it is, but those roots include such patent behemoths as IBM. So it looks like on both sides of the Atlantic, some signs of sanity might be emerging in the patent world from those people right in the thick of it." Note, this was a half-day strike, not ongoing.
Biotech

Bringing Giant Tortoises Back From Extinction 125

Posted by timothy from the reviving-the-turtle-hegemony dept.
fizzysister writes "The BBC reports that scientists at Yale are intending to resurrect an extinct species of Galapagos tortoise, the Geochelone elephantopus. Unfortunately, not in the style of Jurassic Park, so no tortoise-based theme parks just yet. They will, however, be using genetic profiling of living tortoises that carry some of the elephantopus genes, to select the most appropriate of these to mate and thus eventually (after a century or more) create a generation of 'pure' Geochelone elephantopus individuals."
Security

PDF Exploits On the Rise 183

Posted by timothy from the worse-than-a-bad-moon- dept.
An anonymous reader writes "According to the TrustedSource Blog, malware authors increasingly target PDF files as an infection vector. Keep your browser plugins updated. From the article: 'The Portable Document Format (PDF) is one of the file formats of choice commonly used in today's enterprises, since it's widely deployed across different operating systems. But on a down-side this format has also known vulnerabilites which are exploited in the wild. Secure Computing's Anti-Malware Research Labs spotted a new and yet unknown exploit toolkit which exclusively targets Adobe's PDF format.'"
Mars

Mars Rover's Epic Trek For the Crater Endeavor 145

Posted by timothy from the endeavor-endeavor dept.
Smivs writes "The BBC reports that NASA is to send its Mars rover Opportunity on a two-year trek to try to reach a crater called Endeavour. The robot will have to move about 11km to get to its new target — a distance that would double what it has already achieved on the planet. Endeavour is much bigger than anything investigated to date, and will allow a broader range of rocks to be studied. Detailed satellite imagery from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will help pick out the best route ahead; and new software recently uploaded to Opportunity will enable the rover to make its own decisions about how best to negotiate large rocks in its path. Opportunity has just emerged from the 800m-wide Victoria Crater. Endeavour, by comparison, is 22km across."
Education

Get Ready For ... Nanosoccer! 89

Posted by timothy from the can't-use-your-hands dept.
DeviceGuru writes "For the past few years, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology has been sponsoring nanosoccer — a new team sport for universities with programs in micro-electro-mechanical systems. The soccer nanobots, operated by human players via remote-controlled magnetic fields and electrical signals, slide tiny discs around on a 30mm x 30mm playing field. Two demonstration competitions have already been held, and a third one is slated to take place next summer in Austria at RoboCup 2009."
GUI

Windows 7 Beta Screenshots Leaked 587

Posted by timothy from the they're-prevolutionary dept.
Slatterz writes "Screenshots of what is said to be the next version of Microsoft's Windows operating system have been leaked onto the internet. The ThinkNext.net blog posted a range of screenshots over the weekend which it said represents Windows 7. Overall, the screenshots show a distinctly Vista-like interface, but there is still plenty of time for tweaks and changes to take place."
Censorship

Kuwait Issues Order To Block YouTube 180

Posted by timothy from the singed-and-composed dept.
Bashar Abdullah writes "Kuwait Ministry of Communications have issued orders to all ISPs to block YouTube, after some offensive videos to Quran and prophet were posted there. YouTube is 15% of Kuwaiti traffic, ranked #3 on Alexa for Kuwait. Funny thing is, those videos they refer to have been removed and I can't reach them anymore."
Media

Bad Signs For Blu-ray 1276

Posted by timothy from the anguish-languish dept.
Ian Lamont writes "More than six months after HD-DVD gave up the ghost, there are several signs that Sony's rival Blu-ray format is struggling to gain consumer acceptance. According to recent sales data from Nielsen, market share for Blu-ray discs in the U.S. is declining, and Sony and its Blu-ray partners are trying several tactics to boost the format — including free trial discs bundled into magazines and cheap Blu-ray players that cost less than $200."

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