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Feed Robotics: Engineers Announce Plastic, Air- And Light-driven Device More Precise (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed
Engineers report the invention of a motor without metal or electricity that can safely power remote-controlled robotic medical devices used for cancer biopsies and therapies guided by magnetic resonance imaging. The motor that drives the devices can be so precisely controlled by computer that movements are steadier and more precise than a human hand.
Music

Submission + - RIAA Announces New Campus Lawsuit Strategy

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The RIAA is once again revising their lawsuit strategy, and will now be sending college students and others "pre-lawsuit letters." People will now be able to settle for a discount. How nice.
XBox (Games)

Submission + - Xbox 360 Can Be Hacked

Submitted by Rob
Rob writes: This was posted yesterday on Security Focus' BugTraq list and looks like a follow-up to the anonymous 23C3 Hacker Congress presentation held in December. Looks like some huge news (Unsigned Code Execution in Hypervisor Mode) even if it's already patched by Microsoft in the latest kernel release: http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/sep/EEZkykVkkF mojzapEq.php and here it is explained in normal terms: http://www.xboxic.com/news/2485
Google

Submission + - CafePress using scare tactics and bullying...

Submitted by
Mike Sobczyk
Mike Sobczyk writes: "... to remove competition on the internet (Google AdWords). They are sending out frivolous cease and desist orders to those who try to advertise in their market(s) to scare competition away. Shirtaday.com is a newly founded local Austin company that has started advertising through Google's AdWords to gain awareness for its site (www.shirtaday.com). ShirtaDay.com sells custom t-shirts, with a different design everyday. They have employed an innovative pricing twist in that the more shirts that are sold, the more that everyone saves. A refund is issued at the end of the day to all those who have purchased a shirt. As more shirts are purchased, the refund amount grows, and the price in the end to the customer decreases. Additionally, shirtaday.com welcomes individuals to submit their designs for use on t-shirts. If an individual's design is chosen, they receive 1/3 of the profits from that day's sales. Lastly, shirtaday.com is also setup for easy and effective fundraisers for organizations of all types. As part of ShirtaDay.com's advertising campaign they have chosen the keywords "cafepress", "cafe press", and "cafepress.com" as target words. When a user types in these words, amopng many others, ShirtaDay.com's ad will be displayed (assuming their bid amount is sufficient, budget is adequate, etc.) ShirtaDay.com's ads make no reference to being cafepress.com, affiliated with cafepress.com, or even similar to cafepress.com. Cafepress.com is not mentioned anywhere on the site or within the ads. Such advertising is perfectly legal and acceptable. Companies are allowed to target any such keywords they choose, as long as they are not infringing on trademarks by representing to be another company. ShirtaDay.com's website is not similar to cafepress.com, the concept is not the same, the layout is not resembling to cafepress.com, and it makes no attempt to be like cafepress.com. For example, search for Microsoft, or Oracle. Many ads pop up which are not in fact Microsoft, or Microsoft authorized. There are many such instances. If Microsoft could sue these companies they most likely would, but there are no grounds for such suits, as they are not breaking any laws. Cafepress.com's cease and desist, which was sent to us, was merely a scare tactic. There is also legal precedent to support this in the following two cases: J.G. Wentworth S.S.C. Ltd. v. Settlement Funding LLC d/b/a Peachtree Settlement Funding, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, No. 06-0597, January 4, 2007. Wells Fargo & Co. v. WhenU.com, Inc., 293 F. Supp. 2d 734, 757 (E.D. Mich. 2003). In both cases the court dismissed the suits, pointing out, among other things, that: "At no point are potential consumers `taken by a search engine' to defendant's website due to defendant's use of plaintiff's marks in meta tags. Rather, as in the present case, a link to defendant's website appears on the search results page as one of many choices for the potential consumer to investigate. As stated above, the links to defendant's website always appear as independent and distinct links on the search result pages regardless of whether they are generated through Google's AdWords program or search of the keyword meta tags of defendant's website. Further, plaintiff does not allege that defendant's advertisements and links incorporate plaintiff's marks in any way discernible to Internet users and potential customers." and furthermore: "Due to the separate and distinct nature of the links created on any of the search results pages in question, potential consumers have no opportunity to confuse defendant's services, goods, advertisements, links or websites for those of plaintiff." The court added that: "Likelihood of confusion exists where `consumers viewing the mark would probably assume that the product or service it represents is associated with the course of a different product or service identified by a similar mark." This is not the case with ShirtaDay.com as we use no simliar marks in our ads. In conclusion, in the case referenced, the court "granted defendant's motion to dismiss since defendant carried the burden of establishing that "no reasonable factfinder could find a likelihood of confusion on any set of facts that plaintiff could prove." The Court reasoned that even if "defendant did in fact use plaintiff's marks through Google's AdWords program or in the keyword meta tags for its website-as a matter of law defendant's actions do not result in any actionable likelihood of confusion under the Lanham Act." http://www.lawpublish.com/sample/ACS611A6.PDF Please help us raise awareness of this issue and of the tactics of the larger online websites. Their actions are almost monopolistic and violate freedoms of speech. If this has happened to us, we can only assume it has happened to many others. Thank You, Mike Sobczyk, ShirtaDay.com Founder This is also in our blog, at http://shirtaday.com/wordpress/?p=18"
XBox (Games)

Submission + - Slate: Casual Play on 360 Live Arcade

Submitted by
twoallbeefpatties
twoallbeefpatties writes: "Columnist Chris Suellentrop writes an article for Slate describing how his desire for casual gaming is fulfilled more by the 360 than the Wii due to the presence of simpler games available over Live Arcade, saying that the availability of oldschool Nintendo games on the Wii network fulfills his nostalgic hardcore gaming side, but when he really wants to just relax, he'd rather be trying to top his Live high score on Root Beer Tapper."
Censorship

Submission + - Is your website banned in China?

Submitted by
tcd004
tcd004 writes: "Is your site banned in China? FP Passport recently profiled a new online service, Greatfirewallofchina.org, which tests any website from a server based inside the Middle Kingdom, and reports back whether or not the page is available. Passport also notes that the Great Firewall reveals Chinese censorship whittles down websites to block out individual pages, instead of always applying a site-wide block. The site keeps a running log of each test so Censorship trends over time can be easily tracked."

JetBlue to Offer WiFi 121

Posted by Zonk from the guess-where-i'm-iming-you-from dept.
andyring writes "Although some trans-Atlantic flights offer WiFi for a fee, JetBlue has won approval from the FCC to provide WiFi on their flights." From the article: "While Verizon's telephone service aboard commercial planes has not done well because of the high cost to use the phones, there has been interest in offering high-speed Internet access in the air to business travelers. The licenses will not mean travelers can soon use their cell phones in the air. The FCC and Federal Aviation Administration are still weighing whether to permit that."

Highly Critical Hole Found in IE 336

Posted by CmdrTaco from the must-be-thursday dept.
dotpavan writes "Eweek reports on a highly critical MS Internet Explorer hole found by Secunia Research's Andreas Sandblad. The vulnerability is due to the processing of the "createTextRange()" method call applied on a radio button control. From Secunia, "The vulnerability has been confirmed on a fully patched system with Internet Explorer 6.0 and Microsoft Windows XP SP2." The vulnerability has also been confirmed in Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview (January edition) though it could be avoided by turning off Active Scripting, as suggested by Microsoft Security Response Center blog. How would this put MS in the market, hit by the ever-growing shots of vulnerabilties? And would the divorce of IE7 from Vista's Windows Explorer help?"

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