Overkill Nbuta - Slashdot User

Submission + - Court: Cops Can Steal and Lie to Conduct Searches (lawbean.com)

Submitted by

Spamicles

on Friday June 08, 2007 @05:59PM

Spamicles writes: "Police officers faked a car jacking in order to search a car that was suspected to be used in drug trafficking. They discovered drugs and arrested the owners of the car. A lower court ruled that the warrant-less search and seizure violated the Fourth Amendment and that the drugs could not be used as evidence. This ruling was overturned today."

Submission + - Patent reform on the horizon?

Submitted by Reivec on Friday June 08, 2007 @10:13AM

Reivec writes: U.S. patent law, already shaken up by a Supreme Court ruling this spring, is facing its biggest overhaul in 50 years, amid a legislative battle that pits drug companies against some major players in the financial and high-tech sectors.

The battle's next round is in the Senate, where a committee is set today to consider legislation backed by Democratic and Republican leaders that would make patents harder to get and easier to challenge. It would also reduce penalties for violating them."

U.S. Bans Some Cellphones For Patent Reasons 173

Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday June 08, 2007 @03:14AM from the keeping-them-honest dept.

runner_one writes "According to the New York Times, A federal agency has banned imports of new cellphones made with Qualcomm semiconductors because the chips violate a patent held by Broadcom. The International Trade Commission said today that the import ban would not apply to mobile phone models that were imported on or before June 7." Update: 06/08 13:05 GMT by KD : Glenn Fleishman notes that Apple's iPhone will be allowed into the country, since it doesn't use any 3G chips. He adds that Apple "might have the most advanced smartphone on the market unless President Bush or his trade representative overturn the ruling (which they have the power to do)."

Submission + - Vista not playing well with IPv6?

Submitted by

netbuzz

on Thursday June 07, 2007 @03:38PM

netbuzz writes: "Early adopters of Microsoft Vista are reporting problems with its implementation of IPv6, according to Network World. Example: "We are seeing a number of applications that are IP-based that do not like the addressing scheme of IPv6," says one user. "We will send a print job to an IP-based printer, and the print job becomes corrupted. We're seeing this with Window's Vista machines. When IPv6 is installed, this happens without fail. As soon as we remove IPv6, all of our printer functions return to normal."

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/060707-micro soft-vista-ipv6-incompatible.html"

Submission + - Soviet Video Games from the 70s

Submitted by

vigmeister

on Thursday June 07, 2007 @01:27PM

vigmeister writes: "Russian kids have uncovered and rebuilt some arcade games from the Soviet era. These games apparently offered free play when someone played well, but no list of hi-scores. Roughly 32 of them have been found and although they are based on other arcade games, I hope these games were unique enough to offer playability for the present day arcade game lovers. Wonder when they'll be available for download on the Wii though...:))"

Submission + - Battlefield 'Bear' robot to rescue fallen soldiers

Submitted by holy_calamity on Thursday June 07, 2007 @01:00PM

holy_calamity writes: A Maryland firm is developing a remote-controlled robot to rescue injured or abducted soldiers, New Scientist reports. The Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot (Bear) prototype is already capable of lifting more than 135 kilograms with one arm, and recently showed how it can climb up and down stairs with a human-size dummy in its arms. There are videos of it carrying a dummy while standing and kneeling.

Submission + - Man sues Gateway because he can't read EULA

Submitted by Scoopy on Thursday June 07, 2007 @12:02PM

Scoopy writes: California resident Dennis Sheehan took Gateway to small claims court after he reportedly received a defective computer and little technical support from the PC manufacturer. Gateway responded with their own lawyer and a 2-inch thick stack of legal docs, and claimed that Sheehan violated the EULA, which requires that users give up their right to sue and settle these cases in private arbitration. Sheehan responded that he never read the EULA, which pops up when the user first starts the computer, because the graphics were scrambled — precisely the problem he had complained to tech support in the first place. A judge sided with Sheehan on May 24 and the case will proceed to small claims court.

A lawyer is quoted as saying that Sheehan, a high school dropout who is arguing his own case, is in for a world of hurt: 'This poor guy now faces daunting reality of having to litigate this on appeal against Gateway...By winning, he's lost.'

Submission + - Losing suit pants leads to costly lawsuit

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 06, 2007 @11:55AM

An anonymous reader writes: Imagine, if you will, an ordinary dry cleaner where you drop off your suit pants for cleaning to wear to your new job in two days. Contrary to promises and the signs on the window claiming "Same Day Service" and "Satisfaction Guaranteed", the pants aren't ready. Worse, they've been lost, and you are definitely not satisfied. The solution? Why, sue the cleaners for $67 million dollars, of course, just as District of Columbia judge Roy Pearson has done. The lawsuit was recently reduced to only $54 million, but the plaintiff is pressing ahead with the case.

Submission + - Reducing RSI Pain Once it's Happened

Submitted by

Wellington Grey

on Tuesday June 05, 2007 @02:16PM

Wellington Grey writes: "I've been a heavy computer user since my parents bought home an Apple ][. Immediately addicted by the glowing screen, I typed and clicked until my wrists and fingers would no longer let me. But last month something scary happened: the pain in my hand didn't go away. The first and middle fingers on my right hand chronically hurt even when I wasn't on the computer.

The pain grew and, concerned, I visited a doctor who diagnosed it as a repetitive strain injury. When I asked what could be done to fix it, his advice was essentially: "Sucks to be you. Take some ibuprofen and stay off the computer, nerd."

While just five years ago I would have felt guilty not following advice to limit my computer use, I don't now. Like it or not, benefit or not, the computer is a central focus of life. My work, and all my hobbies, from photography to writing, to drawing involve the computer.

So my question to slashdotters is this: once you already have RSI, what can you do to reduce the pain if limiting computer use isn't an option?"

Submission + - Lunar Crime to be Stamped Out

Submitted by Oxygen99 on Tuesday June 05, 2007 @02:07PM

Oxygen99 writes: It's long been suggested that the moon can have a significant effect on the psychological state of humans. Although tales of werewolves are the subject of few academic papers, it's often believed that people get more violent, more insane or just plain more reckless depending on the phase of the lunar cycle. Academic opinion suggests this is largely a folk belief but Sussex Police , here in the UK, are to place extra policemen on the streets of Brighton when a full moon occurs, arguing that their research shows a definite link.

Given that the strength of the relationship between lunar cycles and physiology is so arguable, is this a worthwhile exercise or is it another victory for pseudo-science over empiricism?

Submission + - NanoBooks to one day outsell laptops?

Submitted by on Tuesday June 05, 2007 @01:03PM

An anonymous reader writes: Now that laptops outsell desktops, the hunt for the next level of miniaturization is on. Microsoft came up with the clunky Windows-powered UMPC (aka Origami). Intel countered with the smaller, Linux-powered MID (mobile Internet device), complete with its own version of Ubuntu. Last week, Palm unveiled the Foleo, a kind of co-Pilot (pun intended) for the mobile Internet. And finally, today, Via debuted its NanoBook, a mini-notebook like the Foleo, but capable of running standard PC OSes. Could any of these new form factors be the Next Bi..., er, Little Thing?

Submission + - CompUSA Sales Empty Box (lostremote.com)

Submitted by

bblboy54

on Tuesday June 05, 2007 @12:14PM

bblboy54 writes: "CompUSA recently sold a customer an empty box and is refusing to refund the money because the item was a clearance and, according to CompUSA, all sales are final — even if the sale is of an empty box. The CEO's office goes as far as to blame the buyer for not inspecting the box."

Submission + - Open Source solutions for Situation Rooms?

Submitted by

riffer

on Tuesday June 05, 2007 @11:07AM

riffer writes: "In my team at work we're looking to put together a Situation Room for dealing with IT security. We want something that allows multiple video inputs from different computers to go to one or two large screen displays (probably plasmas), with the ability to resize, zoom and move the sub-displays around. There are various commercial solutions but I'm hoping an open source application could be used. I've looked at MythTV and it seems to offer much of what we'd need, but it's oriented towards TV watching and recording, and our video inputs would not be from cable TV or video cameras. We want this to look and feel professional, for acceptance by fairly conservative (and not very geeky) upper-management. Any suggestions?"

Submission + - AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350 45W Processor Reviewed (viperlair.com)

Submitted by

Quasar

on Tuesday June 05, 2007 @10:37AM

Quasar writes: "AMD's latest sports a new name and a much lower voltage. We test the BE-2350 with a combination of real-world and synthetic tests. "It's important to put into perspective what we're looking at today. If you're looking to build a high-end gaming PC or some sort of high-level video editing workstation, this processor isn't going to be for you. The intended market will be corporate workstations and the silent PC or HTPC market. We have a forum thread going on debating the benefits of energy efficient processors and energy bills. Unless you're a home user who leaves their PC on 24/7, you probably won't see much in the way of savings, but this won't be the case for cubicle farms." http://www.viperlair.com/reviews/cpu_mobo/amd/be23 50/"

Submission + - BBC goatse'd in London 2012 Olympics logo backlash (photobucket.com)

Submitted by soliptic on Monday June 04, 2007 @03:06PM

soliptic writes: Today the London 2012 Olympics committee unveiled their new logo, to a mostly derisory and hostile reception. In response, the BBC website challenged the public to do better, and showcased some entries both on the website and on BBC1. Unfortunately, one entry (SFW) wasn't exactly based on the inspiring premise it claimed! Is this the first example of a goatse prank getting all the way through to national network television?

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