Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Patents

The Post-Bilski Era Gets Underway 94

bfwebster writes "A set of pharmaceutical process patents for 'evaluating and improving the safety of immunization schedules' (Classen v. Biogen et al.; see US Patents 6,420,139; 6,638,379; 5,728,385; 5,723,283) were held to be invalid due to unpatentability. The decision was appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, but was upheld with a terse citation to In re Bilski (which decision we discussed here). Here's the entire text of the appeals decision: 'In light of our decision in In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (en banc), we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment that these claims are invalid under 35 U.S.C. 101. Dr. Classen's claims are neither "tied to a particular machine or apparatus" nor do they "transform a particular article into a different state or thing." Bilski, 545 F.3d at 954. Therefore we affirm.' It will be interesting to see what happens when these same standards start getting applied to software-related patents."

Comment Re:no (Score 2, Informative) 531

What's www.piratebay.com? Do you mean THEPIRATEBAY.ORG and if so, why wait for public trackers when you can.. ugh.. nevermind. Do you think San Andreas or Vice City was any different? No, they've always had SecuROM with GTAs and I've always applied a crack to my legit purchases because I don't want to keep or swap discs in my drive.
Patents

German Police Raid 51 CeBIT Stands Over Patent Claims 191

LeCaddie writes "Last week German investigators raided 51 exhibitor stands at CeBIT, the German information technology fair in Hanover, looking for goods suspected of infringing patents. Some 183 police, customs officers, and prosecutors raided the fair on Wednesday and carried off 68 boxes of electronic goods and documents including cellphones, navigation devices, digital picture frames, and flat-screen monitors. Of the 51 companies raided, 24 were Chinese. Most of the patents concerned were related to devices with MP3, MP4, and DVB standard functions for digital audio and video, blank CDs, and DVD copiers, police said." In the US there are no criminal penalties associated with patents, and such a raid could not be conducted, especially in the absence of a court ruling of infringement.
Government

Guantanamo Officers Caught Modifying Wikipedia 598

James Hardine writes "Wikileaks reports that US armed forces personnel at Guantanamo have conducted propaganda attacks over the Internet. (The story has been picked up by the NYTimes, The Inquirer, the New York Daily News, and the AP.) The activities documented by Wikileaks include deleting Guantanamo detainees' ID numbers from Wikipedia, posting of self-praising comments on news websites in response to negative articles, promoting pro-Guantanamo stories on the Internet news focus website Digg, and even altering Wikipedia's entry on Cuban President Fidel Castro to describe him as 'an admitted transsexual' (misspelling the word 'transsexual'). Guantanamo spokesman Lt. Col. Bush blasted Wikileaks for identifying one 'mass communications officer' by name, who has since received death threats for 'simply doing his job — posting positive comments on the Internet about Gitmo.'"
Security

RealPlayer Zero-Day Flaw Under Attack 150

openOption writes "ZDNet is reporting that hackers are actively exploiting a zero-day hole in RealNetworks' RealPlayer media player, a software program installed on tens of millions of Windows computers worldwide. The in-the-wild attacks targets a previously unknown and unpatched ActiveX vulnerability in the way RealPlayer interacts with Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. The flaw is causing drive-by malware downloads when an IE user simply browsers to a maliciously rigged Web page."
Security

Florida Literally Scraps Touch-Screen Voting 177

Kaseijin writes "Florida Governor Charlie Crist is getting his wish. The New York Times reports the state will replace touch-screen voting machines with optical-scan models by July 1, 2008 — the most aggressive timetable of any jurisdiciton rethinking this approach to voting. The touch-screen machines most likely will be sold to other jurisdictions or stripped for parts."
Software

Submission + - OSC threatten BBC over Microsoft tie-in (bbc.co.uk)

FireFury03 writes: "After the BBC Trust approved the BBC's development of a Windows-only video-on-demand service in April, the Open Source Consortium is threatening the BBC with a complaint to the European Commission, since it gives Microsoft an unfair advantage and is not in the public interest. They have also complained to the regulator (Ofcom) and the BBC Trust comparing the situation to the BBC only making programmes that can only be watched on one particular brand of television.

As a licence fee payer, I feel that I should have the right to withhold a portion of my licence fee since the BBC obviously feels it appropriate to artificially restrict the content and therefore prevent a proportion of licence fee payers from legitimately accessing it. It is also interesting to note from the article that the BBC seems to consider supporting only Windows and Mac to be "platform agnostic", with no mention of other operating systems."

It's funny.  Laugh.

Submission + - Homer Simpson kidnapped by Malaysian fan (thewestaustralian.com.au)

Cyspeth writes: "Cartoon character Homer Simpson has been kidnapped in Malaysia and Hollywood is offering a reward of 1,000 ringgit for his safe return. Film studio Twentieth Century Fox announced the bounty after a 1.2 metre statue of Simpson was stolen from a cinema display in a mall in the Malaysian capital. It was one of a set of outsize replicas of the family being used to advertise The Simpsons, a movie spinoff of the US television series that is set for release in Malaysia next month. "This guy is really dumb, because he must know that in a mall there are lots of surveillance cameras," said Nor Hayati Yahaya, country manager of the Motion Picture Association that groups major film studios. "We got footage of his car, plate number, his face, everything.""
Privacy

Submission + - Keylogger Hardware Embedded in New Dell Laptop (virus.org.ua)

kendbluze writes: "Here's an EE who was doing a simple repair to a nearly-new Dell 600m laptop when he noticed something a bit curious. Turns out he found a hardware keylogger sitting between the keyboard and ethernet controllers! See what Homeland Security didn't have to say about it."
Announcements

Submission + - Newton Predicts World Will End No Sooner than 2060 (cnn.com)

Sean H writes: Writings of Isaac Newton recently made public include a prediction that the earth will end no sooner than 2060 — among other observations made from interpretations of the Old Testament.
Censorship

Submission + - Help. American Idol is going after me. (gk2gk.com)

Geek 2 Geek writes: "Hi, I was referred to slashdot as a place where I might get help for a problem I'm having. A while ago, I devised a contest for my web site — Geek 2 Geek. It is a "talent" show for geeks in which they submit humorous videos. I called it "Geek Idol". We received a letter from a law firm representing American Idol regarding our contest contest. A complete copy of the letter can be seen at www.gk2gk.com/topten/template20.asp . They express the concern that "... your use of GEEK IDOL will most likely cause confusion, mistake, and/or deception among the consuming public regarding the source or sponsorship of your services, and will give the false impression that your services are associated with ... 'American Idol' in violation of our client's rights. They also say that "... since AMERICAN IDOL is a famous mark, ... your use of GEEK IDOL would also constitute dilution of our client's marks and unfair competion. If we do not withdraw our use of "GEEK IDOL", they say they will seek remedies including, "without limitation, immediate and permanent injunctive relief, compensatory and punitive damages, and an award for attorney's fees and costs incurred in obtaining such remedies. I asked our members whether anyone who read about the contest got the impression that it was somehow affiliated with American Idol. Of course, no one would, it was described in a humorous, satirical way, for one thing. The word "IDOL" is hardly a new word. And, having seen the American Idol show a few times, I don't see that anybody who performs as a "geek" will win their contest, although, I guess, Clay Aiken started out that way, but it was bred out of him by the time he was a finalist. Are there any lawyers out there? Any advice from anyone as to how we should respond? Thanks."
Security

Submission + - Car Rental Agency with poor Credit Card verify

An anonymous reader writes: In an time of increased Credit Card Fraud it's amazing that one of the worlds largest Car Rental Agencies has such poor Credit Card Verification technology leaving countless users open to Credit Card Fraud.

Rather than being a victim of Credit Card fraud, I discovered on June 14th that a car I booked and paid for on January 31st was charged to some other poor person's Credit Card. How did this happen? The other persons credit card was the same as mine with 2 digits (11th and 13th) swapped and the same expiry date. Sounds impossible, but not it's actually not that difficult to occur given that the Checksum is the same if numbers are swapped and Credit Cards are generally only issued for a period of up to 4 years (48 expiry periods). They blame me for user input error, I blame them for systems error.

You'd think that a company the size of Hertz would use proper verification technology. However, they only verify the Credit Card Number and Expiry Date. They don't verify against the Credit Card Owner Name or Address or CVC number. With chip and pin and more secure online technology such as "Verified By Visa" becoming increasingly common place, to combat fraud, this seems like absolute madness. They have the lowest form of online Credit Card verification.

In resolving the matter Hertz Ireland sent me an email containing all the details of the booking (including the Credit Card Number and Expiry Date). That gave me real confidence that they are protecting my data.

Hertz's answer to this. My fault of course. The poor owner of the credit card had to wait 4 months (mainly because they didn't contact me till the end of the dispute with her) for a refund and I had to make a new booking for next month. Thankfully, there was still availability of the convertible mustang I'm so looking forward to driving. ;-)
Programming

Submission + - I'm in Your PC, Writing Your Code (lolcode.com)

Samah writes: "As internet memes become increasingly prevalent in our society, sometimes a gem like this comes about. From this article: "The attack of the lolcats has spilled over to programming, with LOLCODE, a language based on the mangled grammar of lolcats...LOLCODE has no practical or educational value, but that doesn't mean it isn't fun""
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - An In Depth Look Into Chinese "Gold Farming

Henry V .009 writes: The The New York Times describes the life of a Chinese World of Warcraft "Gold Farmer": At the end of each shift, Li reports the night's haul to his supervisor, and at the end of the week, he, like his nine co-workers, will be paid in full. For every 100 gold coins he gathers, Li makes 10 yuan, or about $1.25, earning an effective wage of 30 cents an hour, more or less. The boss, in turn, receives $3 or more when he sells those same coins to an online retailer, who will sell them to the final customer (an American or European player) for as much as $20.
Enlightenment

Submission + - Bicycling from Alaska to Panama for Charity (cyclingforacause.com)

MBrichacek writes: "This summer, instead of taking classes or getting a job like other college students typically do, Michal Brichacek has decided to do something radically different. He has decided instead to ride a bicycle from Anchorage, Alaska to Panama City, Panama in order to raise funds for the Lance Armstrong Foundation. He plans on covering a distance of over 12,000 km in just 120 days and plans on raising $1 for every kilometer he covers. Currently in the city of San Francisco, he has already covered a distance of 5,300 km and has experienced countless adventures. You can check out daily journal updates and photos on his website or even make a donation if your feeling extra generous!"

Slashdot Top Deals

"And remember: Evil will always prevail, because Good is dumb." -- Spaceballs

Working...