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Patents

Submission + - Apple provides patents to patent troll so they can (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Apple, further showing that they're willing to abuse the patent system however possible, has now teamed up with a patent troll.

Over the last two years, Apple has been engaged in vicious legal battles over smartphone patents, many of which are aimed at squelching (or squeezing money out of) manufacturers of devices running Android. And now, for some reason, it has given valuable patents to a patent troll — which is using them to sue many of the top technology companies in the world.

Submission + - Apple behind patent troll which is suing all mobil (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by
dell623
dell623 writes: "Techcrunch have posted a story about the patent troll company Digitude Innovations that recently filed suit with ITC suing all major mobile manufacturers except Apple. It turns out DI is a patent accumulating and licensing company and the patents it is using to sue were owned by Apple until recently before being transferred via a shell company. The patents in question are typical software patents that could be said to be infringed by every smartphone."

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Image recognition for race timing?

Submitted by int2str
int2str writes: Slashdot, Autocross (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autocross) is a form of motorsports practiced in the US and around the world where car enthusiasts explore the capabilities of their car in an open parking lot or similar suited area. It's point-to-point racing (not closed circuit). Most of these events are organized by car clubs and volunteers.

Timing is usually done with a form of detection beam at start and finish that gets interrupted by the car crossing the beam. Many commercial systems are available. All of these system require the operator to enter the car's number or ID and requires the cars finishing in the order they started. So if one car is not able to finish, the operator has to intervene, or timing is broken.

For closed circuit racing, transponder systems are available to address this problem. But such systems require sensor loops in the track or overhead (bridge setup) and the transponders are expensive.

Do you think it would be possible to design a timing system using off-the-shelf parts and open source solutions to uniquely distinguish about 100 participating vehicles and time them from a start to a finish point, independently of their finishing order?

My initial idea would be:
- Use (web-?)cameras at each end that feed into a Linux based notebook (USB/Ethernet).
- Start recoding still images as fast as possible when motion is detected
- Identify unique shape, numbers, barcode, qr code or similar in the images, that have been attached using a magnet to the vehicle's door.

Difficulties to overcome:
- Camera with high enough shutter speed to get recognizable image of vehicle traveling 30-60mph
- Quickly and accurately identify a unique symbol or shape

So far I've started looking into OpenCV as a possible tool for image recognition, but have not been able to find a capture solution.

Does anybody have experience with something like this?

The solution would be open source and well documented as to benefit the many car clubs around the country and the world.
Patents

Submission + - Apple Patents the Wheel (plumvoice.com)

Submitted by lisa86430
lisa86430 writes: Apple just patented “touchscreen unlock gestures,” according to the BBC. You know, swiping, pattern entry, et cetera.
Android

Submission + - Oracle-Google trial won't start until next year (techworld.com.au)

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "The intellectual property lawsuit between Oracle and Google over the Android mobile OS won't go to trial until next year, according to a ruling made in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by the judge overseeing the case. The trial was initially set to begin Oct. 31 but was postponed last week by Judge William Alsup due to scheduling conflicts with a major criminal trial. The trial will be split into three stages heard by the same jury. In step one, "liability on the copyright claims, including all defenses thereto, will be tried and determined by special verdict before going to Phase Two," he wrote. The second phase will cover liability on the case's patent claims, he added. "The jury will decide these issues before going to Phase Three." In the final stage, "all remaining issues will be tried, including damages and willfulness"."
Australia

Submission + - Australian Stock Exhange Down (news.com.au)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: the Australian Stock exchange has been down for over an Hour/
  There is speculation its been hacked or more....
Certainly the timing is odd. With the Euro crisis and Aussie Companies announcing profits. WHY TODAY.

http://www.news.com.au/business/markets/technical-glitch-shuts-down-australian-stock-exchange/story-e6frfm30-1226178093460
  and
http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/stocks-hit-by-trading-glitch-20111027-1mkuj.html

a strange coincidence at the least
Mars

Submission + - Mars Feels Sun's Wrath (discovery.com)

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "The Sun battered the Earth's magnetosphere with an "epic" geomagnetic storm over the last couple of days, generating beautiful auroral displays at low latitudes. Now it's Mars' turn.

On Saturday (Oct. 22), a large bubble of solar plasma was blasted from the Sun's surface. Unlike the coronal mass ejection (CME) that struck us on Monday, Saturday's CME was sent in a different direction — toward the Red Planet. On Wednesday (Oct. 26), the CME hit."
Android

Submission + - Apple patents touchscreen unlock gesture

Submitted by Snarky McButtface
Snarky McButtface writes: Apple has been granted a patent on unlocking a smartphone or tablet using a predefined gesture. The patent was originally filed in 2009 and it took me 15 seconds to find prior art. In the end, it is we, the consumer, who pay the price of the patent wars through limited choice and higher costs. What can we do to end this nonsense?
Science

Submission + - Mummy Has Oldest Case of Prostate Cancer in Ancien (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: An international research team has diagnosed what ailed an ancient Egyptian known only as M1. He had the oldest known case of prostate cancer in ancient Egypt and the second oldest case in the world. Moreover, the new study suggests that earlier investigators may have underestimated the prevalence of cancer in ancient populations because high-resolution computerized tomography (CT) scanners capable of finding tumors measuring just 1 to 2 millimeters in diameter only became available in 2005.

Submission + - EFF, ACLU file lawsuits over Patriot Act data coll (techworld.com.au)

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "Two civil liberties groups have filed lawsuits asking the U.S. Department of Justice to detail its collection of electronic data and other information under the 10-year-old counterterrorism law, the USA Patriot Act. The lawsuits, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, seek to have the DOJ and its U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation branch turn over all information related to information requests allowed under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. Section 215 allows the FBI to ask for a court order to obtain "any tangible things," including books, records, papers, and documents, related to a terrorism investigation."

Submission + - Dwarf planet Eris is bereft of atmosphere, about t (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by derGoldstein
derGoldstein writes: Ars has an article up discussing new measurements of Eris, the largest dwarf planet in our solar system: "New measurements are suggesting that Eris may actually be more like Pluto’s twin. The newly measured radius of Eris puts it within the error range of the accepted size of Pluto. ... Scientists were able to get a better handle on the size of Eris by observing it as it passed in front of a background star, a technique called stellar occultation. By observing how long Eris obscures the star (given how fast it is moving), you can determine the width of Eris at that point."
Censorship

Submission + - PROTECT IP Renamed to the E-PARASITE Act (activepolitic.com)

Submitted by bs0d3
bs0d3 writes: As reported, the US House has drafted their version of Protect IP today. They have renamed the bill to "the Enforcing and Protecting American Rights Against Sites Intent on Theft and Exploitation Act" or the E-PARASITE Act. The new house version of Protect IP is far worse than the Senate bill s.968 and it massively expands the sites that will be covered by the law. While the Senate bill limited its focus to sites that were "dedicated to infringing activities", the house bill targets "foreign infringing sites" and "has only limited purpose or use other than infringement". They're also including an "inducement" claim, any foreign site declared by the Attorney General to be "inducing" infringement, can now be censored by the US. With no adversarial hearing. The bill can be read here.
Linux

Submission + - The Linux Foundation Announces Consumer Electronic (linuxfoundation.org)

Submitted by Snarky McButtface
Snarky McButtface writes: At the LinuxCon Europe event in Prague, The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced it is hosting a new project created by its Consumer Electronics (CE) workgroup.

The new project, the Long Term Support Initiative (LTSI), provides for both an annual release of a Linux kernel suitable for supporting the lifespan of consumer electronics products and regular updates of those releases for two years.

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