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Patents

Submission + - X-Plane Inventor Discusses Patent Trolls (avweb.com)

Submitted by ShoulderOfOrion
ShoulderOfOrion writes: Austin Meyer, creator of the X-Plane PC flight simulator, holds a podcast discussion with an editor of the online aviation website Avweb. The latter half of the podcast discusses Meyer's battles with a patent troll, his views on the patent system in general, and his intent to fight the troll and change the system. It also discusses the impact the patent battle is having on the X-Plane flight simulator, particularly on Android. The patent conversation starts at 11:50 on the podcast.
United States

Submission + - The US Redrawn As 50 Equally Populated States (vice.com) 3

Submitted by
Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: "Bam! For anyone that's paid a speck of attention to the tedium of political redistricting, which happens while a state grows unevenly, (and must dynamically respond to density, electorate disparity, natural resources and ridgelines, etc.), this is straight out of some psychedelic dream. For Democrats, it could be straight out of a nightmare. That's because Freeman's map necessitates 50 equally populous United States. His methods for creating the map are explained thusly:

"The algorithm was seeded with the fifty largest cities. After that, manual changes took into account compact shapes, equal populations, metro areas divided by state lines, and drainage basins. In certain areas, divisions are based on census tract lines... The suggested names of the new states are taken mainly from geographical features."

The new 50 states would be equally potent in terms of voting, but how many would be red? I made this layered GIF of Romney vs. Obama by county to try and figure things out."
Facebook

Submission + - Facebook paid no taxes despite record profits (msn.com) 2

Submitted by Frosty Piss
Frosty Piss writes: Despite earning more than $1 billion in profits last year, social media juggernaut Facebook paid zilch when it came to federal and state taxes in 2012. In fact, the website will actually be getting a refund totaling $429 million thanks to a tax reduction for executive stock options. In the coming years, Facebook will continue to get monster tax breaks, totaling about $3 billion. 'The employees cash in stock options, and at that point there is tax deduction for the company,' Robert McIntyre, of watchdog group Citizens for Tax Justice, said. 'Because even though it doesn't cost Facebook a nickel, the government treats it as wages and they get a deduction for it. And usually it doesn't wipe out companies whole tax bill, although many companies get big breaks from it.'
Hardware

Submission + - Microsoft's 9-axis sensor fusion system for tablet (geek.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: What the Windows engineering team have discovered is the typical 6-axis motion sensing offered through the inclusion of a 3D accelerometer and 3D magnetometer has some major flaws. More specifically, they are limited in how accurate and responsive feedback can be in the hands of a user.

With that being the case, Microsoft added a third sensor in the form of a 3D gyro for sensing rotational speed and then started experimenting. By combining the three sensors, what Microsoft refer to as a 9-axis sensor fusion system, it was possible to overcome the shortcomings of each sensor type to provide a much better system.
Idle

Submission + - Divorce destroys Star Trek dream home guy took 10 (blastr.com) 1

Submitted by
xtekpartners
xtekpartners writes: ""A man who took 10 years to create his own personal man-cave—in this instance, an awesome Star Trek starship interior replica that would make every Trek geek weep—has to tear it all down because his wife is divorcing him."

"When his wife left him in 1994, he undertook the massive task of transforming his Leicester, U.K., apartment into the interior of a Starfleet starship (that's what every Trek fan on the planet would do, right?)—in his case, the USS Voyager was his inspiration."

As an avid Star Trek fan (but not a die hard Trekkie), my heart weeps."
EU

Submission + - Proposed EU Rules Include Right To Be Forgotten (itworld.com)

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes: "A proposed European Union data protection law includes a sliding scale fine up to 2% of a company's global turnover for breaking the rules, appointment of a data-protection officer in companies with over 250 employees, and the 'right to be forgotten', which allows people to have data about them deleted if there are no legitimate grounds for retaining it."
Facebook

Submission + - Facebook's Timeline Apps Are Beacon 2.0 (itworld.com)

Submitted by
jfruhlinger
jfruhlinger writes: "Remember Beacon, the Facebook advertising initiative that went down in a hail of privacy protests in late 2009? Well, as privacy blogger Dan Tynan points out, the array of Facebook Timeline apps announced today look an awful lot like Beacon 2.0. There have been some genuine privacy improvements over the original — and there's probably also been a definite shift in attitudes about sharing in the last 2+ years."
The Military

Submission + - Pentagon to crowdsource weapons software testing (nextgov.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Pentagon plans to fork over $32 million to develop "fun to play" computer games that can refine the way weapons systems are tested to ensure they are free from software errors and security bugs, according to a Defense Department solicitation. The goal is to create puzzles that are "intuitively understandable by ordinary people" and could be solved on laptops, smartphones, tablets and consoles. The games' solutions will be collected into a database and used to improve methods for analyzing software, according to the draft request for proposals put out by the military's venture capital and research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Education

Submission + - U.S. losing R&D dominance to Asia? (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
bednarz
bednarz writes: "U.S. companies are locating more of their R&D operations overseas, and Asian countries are rapidly increasing investments in their own science and technology economies, the National Science Board said in a report http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/ released this week. The number of overseas researchers employed by U.S. multinationals nearly doubled from 138,000 in 2004 to 267,000 in 2009, for example. On the education front, the U.S. accounts for just 4% of undergraduate engineering degrees awarded globally, compared to China (34%), Japan (5%), and India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand (17% collectively). "The low U.S. share of global engineering degrees in recent years is striking; well above half of all such degrees are awarded in Asia," NSB said in its report."

Submission + - US Supreme Court upholds removal of works from Pub (wsj.com) 2

Submitted by langelgjm
langelgjm writes: While much of the web is focused on the SOPA and PIPA blackout, supporters of the public domain today quietly lost a protracted struggle that began back in 2001.The Supreme Court, in a 6-2 decision, rejected the argument that Congress did not have the power to convey copyright upon works that were already in the public domain. The suit was originally filed to challenge provisions that the U.S. adopted when signing the TRIPs agreement. Justices Breyer and Alito dissented, arguing that conveyed copyright on already existing works defied the logic of copyright law. Justice Kagan recused herself. The text of the opinions is available here (PDF).
The Internet

Submission + - Harvard Business Review comes out against SOPA (hbr.org)

Submitted by
hype7
hype7 writes: "The Harvard Business Review has come out with an article extremely critical of SOPA. As opposed to a battle of "content" vs "technology", they are characterizing it as a battle of "giants" vs "innovators". From the article: "If you take a look at many of the largest backers of SOPA and PIPA — the Business of Software Alliance, Comcast, Electronic Arts, Ford, L'Oreal, Scholastic, Sony, Disney — you'll see that they represent a wide range of businesses. Some are technology companies, some are content companies, some are historic innovators, and some are not. But one characteristic is the same across all of SOPA's supporters — they all have an interest in preserving the status quo. If there is meaningful innovation by startups in content creation and delivery, the supporters of SOPA and PIPA are poised to lose.""
Android

Submission + - How Google is Killing Indie Android Developers (blogspot.com)

Submitted by derek5432
derek5432 writes: I've been a full-time indie Android developer for over two years now. It's been an awesome experience, but this is going to be a watershed year, and at the end of it, I'm not sure I'll still be in business. ...
In July 2011 Google revamped the Android Market and removed the 'Just In' category. I can't speak for other devs, but this decision may have wrecked my small business. Why? Because for most indie devs, the Android Market is their primary distribution channel, and if users don't see it there, they don't see it.
Medicine

Submission + - New species-jumping infection discovered. (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by RockDoctor
RockDoctor writes: Diseases caused by organisms moving from one host to another host, and then becoming more virulent in the process, or starting to spread even further, are well known and a cause of real concern to doctors — of both humans and animals. For example, Anthrax has long been known as an annoying disease of cattle, but when humans become infected with the spores it can become both dangerous and be transmitted human-to-human. The haemmoragic fevers (examples : Ebola and Marburg viruses) are more nasty examples. In the 1970s, 1980s, and into the 1990s, barbaric and cannibalistic livestock management practices led to the movement of the disease scrapie from sheep (where it has been known for centuries) into cattle and then into humans with a human death toll likely to reach the thousands.

Veterinary scientists in Belgium, German and the Netherlands are concerned about a new disease emerging in their cattle, sheep and goat herds. While the associated fever and loss of milk production are economically concerning, the disease also leads to many still births and developmental disorders in the foetuses such as hydraencephaly ("water on the brain") and scoliosis (curvature of the spine). Which are frequently disabling if not lethal.

The causative organism has been identified as a virus in a family transmitted by mosquitoes and midges. Related viruses are known to infect cattle, sheep, buffalo, camels, dogs and (ominously) "other species". That is a fairly wide spread of target organisms, which would mean that animal-to-human transmission cannot be ruled out on principle.

"[These]viruses have been neglected for a long time, and we just don't know a lot about them," says a researcher, than adding "The problem with [them] is that their segmented genome makes the emergence of new combinations very easy, just like with influenza viruses,"

In a dig at the insanity of patent systems, the article adds "In order not to lose time and to answer the most pressing questions fast, [a research centre] has decided not to file for any patents on [this virus]-related discoveries. "Our resources are limited," [another researcher] says, "and we are happy to share our knowledge and materials with anyone interested in it for noncommercial or commercial reasons."

My joy at hearing this news is immeasurable, since getting bitten by midges is a normal part of my summer hill-walking. Just what the world needs ; another novel disease coming out of the unknown!
The Military

Submission + - GHOST Claimed to be World's First Super-cavitating (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: If you combined a stealth jet fighter and an attack helicopter and stuck them in the water, what would you get? Well, according to the folks at New Hampshire's Juliet Marine Systems (JMS), you'd get the GHOST marine platform. Privately developed for possible use by the U.S. Navy, the boat would reportedly be invisible to enemy ships' radar, while also being faster and more economical than existing military vessels. The company's big claim, however, is that GHOST is the world's first super-cavitating watercraft.

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