LwPhD - Slashdot User

Comment The guy is running for the state house (Score 1) 179

by LwPhD on Sunday August 17, 2008 @12:41AM (#24632007) Attached to: Kansas Nerd Uses Net To Shake Up Political Fundraising

So what is a state representative in an interior district of an interior state supposed to do about immigration policy exactly?

At best, the state house can decide what to do with those immigrants which are deemed illegal by federal law. Sure he has wiggle room there for some sort of policy. He could support draconian measures to kick everyone out or support "sanctuary" status for his jurisdiction. But really, Sean won't have much impact on this. The US Congress is where to go for that action.

Submission + - Apple, AT&T sued for $360M over Visual Voicema (reuters.com)

Submitted by LwPhD on Tuesday December 04, 2007 @06:46AM

LwPhD writes: Reuters and CNN are reporting that Klausner Technologies is suing Apple and AT&T in the U.S. District Court in Marshall, TX, a fertile hunting ground for patent trolls. At issue is patent number 5,572,576 which describes linking contact information with voice messages. Klausner, even though it frequently targets obvious applications and makes no pretense to developing any technology itself, has sued successfully before, most notably winning a recent settlement from Vonage.

Moreover, Klausner is also suing other companies for the same obvious feature. According to Reuters:

The company alleged in its statement that Cablevision's Optimum Voicemail, Comcast's Digital Voice Voicemail and eBay's Skype Voicemail violate Klausner's patent by allowing users to selectively retrieve and listen to voice messages via message inbox displays.

How long will such patently preposterous patent suits be allowed merely because a feature that seems obvious to technology developers may not seem obvious to judges and juries? I remember that my first college computer (a crummy low-end Packard Bell manufactured in 1995) came with answering machine software installed by default. Is there no example of prior art for using Caller ID, a modem, and a computer to tag messages before Klausner's filing date of 1994?

Adding Capsaicin Improves Anesthetic Treatment 151

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday October 04, 2007 @12:16AM from the so-hot-it's-numb dept.

eldavojohn writes "It's no secret what capsaicin, the fiery molecule of peppers, does to cell walls. In fact, it's now being used to open cells up to local anesthetics. Combine it with a new drug that works only from the insides of cells and you have a great system for relieving pain. From the article, 'QX-314 is known to reduce the activity of pain-sensing neurons in the nervous system and theoretically heighten pain thresholds. But there's a catch: Researchers found that "it wouldn't work from outside a nerve cell but it would work if you could get it inside," says Bruce Bean, a professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School and co-author of the new study."

Submission + - iPhone reportedly unchained from AT&T (hackint0sh.org)

Submitted by LwPhD on Monday August 06, 2007 @05:49AM

LwPhD writes: The details still seem sketchy, but it appears as if a cloning method enables the iPhone to be used on networks other than AT&T. Posts in the comments warn that such cloning, even if only used to connect the iPhone to a legitimate account by the account owner, may still be illegal depending on your country of residence. Nevertheless, this is the first apparently credible source I've yet seen that claims to allow the iPhone to be unchained from AT&T. Time will tell if this method is really viable or merely a false start...

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