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Patents

Submission + - Apple patents idea of using similar batteries in different things (overclock.net)

walterbyrd writes: "Here's an absolutely brilliant idea from Apple: imagine if you had a bunch of different gadgets, and imagine if they could all somehow be powered by batteries that were rechargeable and all interchangeable with one another. How awesome would that be? Super awesome! If only we'd thought of it a long time ago."
Hardware

Submission + - Meet the Mozilla OS Developer Phone (geek.com)

An anonymous reader writes: It’s no secret that Mozilla has been working on a mobile OS. Previously codenmed Boot2Gecko, the project focused on a purely HTML5 based system that worked in many ways like current mobile devices. As the project grew into Mozilla OS, the company has laid out a partnership with ZTE that will have real world devices in certain markets early next year. Testing for this OS had previously consisted of a compiled ROM that would be flashed over a handful of Android devices. Now, Mozilla has moved into full fledged product evaluation mode with their own custom developer phone.

Comment Re:Christ. (Score 1) 102

I thought that the inclusion of (usually optional) parental control settings was part of parenting, deciding whether your kids are ready for whatever's behind the lock.

Covering up the parts of the world that make you uncomfortable is not parenting. Your kids will be exposed to that stuff whether you like it or not, so your job as a parent is to give them the knowledge and skills they need to understand it in context.

Displays

Apple Patents Portrait-Landscape Flipping 354

theodp writes "On Tuesday, the USPTO granted a patent to Apple for Portrait-landscape rotation heuristics for a portable multifunction device (USPTO), which covers 'displaying information on the touch screen display in a portrait view or a landscape view based on an analysis of data received from the one or more accelerometers.' Perhaps the USPTO Examiners didn't get a chance to review the circa-1991 Computer Chronicles video of the Radius Pivot monitor before deeming Apple's invention patentable. Or check out the winning touchArcade trivia contest entry, which noted the circa-1982 Corvus Concept sported a 15-inch, high-resolution, bit-mapped display screen that also flipped between portrait and landscape views when rotated, like our friend the iPhone. Hey, everything old is new again, right?"
Firefox

The Enterprise Is Wrong, Not Mozilla 599

There's been a lot of noise about Mozilla's new rapid release leading to conflict with Enterprise users. Kethinov found an Ars article that points out that "Now that Mozilla has released Firefox 5, version 4, just three months old, is no longer supported. Enterprise customers aren't very pleased with this decision, and are claiming it makes their testing burden impossible. We're not convinced: we think Mozilla's decision is the right one for the Web itself.'"
DRM

Capcom Announces Unreplayable Game 535

Hatta writes "Resident Evil: Mercenaries 3D for the Nintendo 3DS will be an experience that can be completed once per customer. Using a single, unwipable save slot Capcom ensures that a second hand customer gets a second rate experience. If you buy this game used, you will be stuck with the previous owner's progress, unable to start the game fresh."

Comment Re:BitCoins are simply a hobby, not a currency (Score 1) 642

the history and current events are showing that the economy is benefiting in tandem with currency increasing in value, not losing.

Economic benefits in tandem with deflationary currency? Cite, please. I think quite a few Japanese people (not to mention the world's economists!) would be surprised to hear that.

Comment Re:BitCoins are simply a hobby, not a currency (Score 1) 642

> Inflation also encourages lending and investing.
- no it does not. Not in people who understand economics and accounting for real. Inflation discourages any desire to deal in that currency. Why would I want to move my wealth into a depreciating currency?

That's the point! Inflation discourages keeping your wealth in the form of cash, and encourages converting it to something else: lending it to a bank, buying stocks, real estate, or consumer goods, etc. Economic growth depends on people being willing to exchange their cash.

United States

British Student Faces Extradition To US Over Copyright 340

An anonymous reader writes "A 23-year-old British computer student faces possible extradition to the U.S. for linking to copyrighted content on his website. The student, Richard O'Dwyer, was accused of copyright infringement after setting up the website TV Shack, which had links to thousands of films and tv shows, but did not directly host them."
Government

Russian President: Time To Reform Copyright 293

An anonymous reader writes "While most of the rest of the world keeps ratcheting up copyright laws by increasing enforcement and terms, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev appears to be going in the other direction. He's now proposing that Russia build Creative Commons-style open and free licenses directly into Russian copyright law. This comes just a few days after he also chided other G8 leaders for their antiquated views on copyright."
Wireless Networking

Global Warming To Hinder Wi-Fi Signals, Claims UK Gov't 280

radioweather writes with news of a government report from the UK's Dept. for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which warns of global warming's harmful effect on Wi-Fi and other communication protocols. Quoting the Guardian: "Presenting the report, the secretary of state for the environment, Caroline Spelman, said that higher temperatures can reduce the range of wireless communications, rainstorms can impact the reliability of the signal, and drier summers and wetter winters may cause greater subsidence, damaging masts and underground cables. The threat posed by climate change to internet and telephone access is a rare example of when the developed world would be hit harder than developing countries, which are in general more at risk from increased floods, droughts and rising sea levels. 'If climate change threatens the quality of your signal, or you can't get it because of extreme fluctuations in temperature, then you will be disadvantaged, which is why we must address the question,' said Spelman, 'and just imagine in the height of an emergency if the communications system is down or adversely affected.'"
Android

Apple Delays Release of LGPL WebKit Code 209

jfruhlinger writes "Ever since Apple forked the KHTML project to create WebKit, the rendering engine at the core of Safari, the company has been a good open source citizen, releasing the code back to the community after updates. But that suddenly stopped in March, with no code releases for the last two updates to the iOS version of the browser, for reasons unknown. This might remind you of Google's failure to release the Honeycomb source code. But at least Google announced that it was holding the code back, and Android is under a license that allows for a delay; the LGPL'd WebKit isn't." Update: 05/09 21:21 GMT by S : Reader Shin-LaC points out that Apple has now released the relevant source code.
The Internet

Drudge Generates More News Traffic Than Social Media 216

tcd004 writes "A report released today by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism shows that the Drudge Report is a far more important driver of online news traffic than Facebook or Twitter. In fact, for the top 25 news websites, Twitter barely registers as a source of traffic. The report hits on several other interesting findings about news behavior."

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