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Submission + - Ask Slashdot: What to do about patent trolls seeking Wifi license fees? 2

An anonymous reader writes: My company has been contacted by certified letter by Delaware law firm “Stamatios & Weinblatt LLC”. They are seeking license fees for a Wifi patent. I believe this is a patent troll (not that this matters in relation to dealing with this issue). This is a newly formed law firm less than 4 months old. They are representing “Wyncomm LLC” in regards to a “Wifi patent”. This patent is U.S. Patent No. 5,506,866. This patent covers equipment and method related to the transmission of information involving the multiplexing information into a stream of signal points (and demultiplexing the same), and related technology. They have “offered” to license this patent with no amounts specified. Unfortunately we are a small free software company. The company is setup as a sole proprietorship. I'm not asking for legal advise from the Slashdot community. The question is where might one look for “legal counsel” with the expertise to answer these types of legal questions as it relates to this inquiry. I would prefer to avoid legal fees, court cases, or license fees running the company into the ground. The company is registered in New Jersey.
Android

Submission + - Persistant wifi and bluetooth bugs in Android 4.2 (blogspot.com)

DougDot writes: "Lately, it seems all the news sources have been soft-balling Google regarding the Nexus 4, the Nexus7, and the 10. And especially with regard to wifi and bluetooth bugs that crept into the Adnroid distribution with version 4.2.

Well, as it turns out, the masses are not happy. Not happy at all. Read on to find out why."

Technology

Submission + - Turning SF's Bay Bridge into a Giant LED Display (xconomy.com)

waderoush writes: "It may be the biggest art hack ever: a project to install 25,000 individually addressable LED lights on the western span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. New York-based 'light sculptor' Leo Villareal was in San Francisco last week to test the vast 'Bay Lights' art installation, which will officially debut on March 5 and last for two years; Xconomy has photos and video of Villareal running the light show from his laptop. To optimize his algorithms and figure out which patterns would be most interesting or arresting, Villareal needed to experiment on the bridge itself, says Bay Lights director Ben Davis, who has raised $5.8 million for the project so far. 'This has never been done before in history — literally debugging software 500 feet in the air, in front of a million people,' says Davis."
Privacy

Submission + - Whatsapp Accused of Violating Privacy by Canadian, Dutch Authorities (paritynews.com)

hypnosec writes: Whatspp has been accused of inappropriately handling personal information of its users by Canadian and Dutch privacy officials for the manner in which it goes about scanning the phone books of users’ phones. Whatsapp scans users’ phone books or contact list to find who all can the users chat with from that list. The investigations carried out by Dutch Data Protection Authority (CBP) and the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC), which has been going on since about a year, have found that the messaging company, after receiving all the numbers from a user’s contact list, doesn’t delete the number of non-users but, stores them in a hash form. This practice violates the privacy law of both the countries.

Comment An Affordable Pen (Score 1) 712

I was just shopping for pens the other day... I picked up a couple of mechanical pencils and I replaced this cheap Parker that I've fallen in love with another. http://www.amazon.com/PAR7803211-Retractable-Ballpoint-Medium-Barrel/dp/B00275YMAU/ref=sr_1_23 They like to wander to off, so I don't know what good it'll do you? but everytime I pick up one of these I'm satisfied and I stop looking for a pen and start writing again. They write small, smooth, and have a comfortable heft. Dry quickly and have blue ink. I have a more expensive parker and it kind of sucks. I think I just need to replace the ink cartridge. I do know pens need maintenance, maybe you're not taking care of your pen, OP? Parker does generally make pretty decent stuff and on the ink cartridge it says www.parkerpen.com Ballpen Refill [1.0][M] if M is for medium... So I'm thinking you could probably even find something finer, though how it writes I don't know.

Submission + - Skype logs all chat messages

An anonymous reader writes: Recently I found myself having to talk over skype on a computer other than mine. As I logged in a storm of all my chat history flooded the main application window. Turns out that recently Skype has altered the way it sends and logs messages as it now keeps a record of ALL chats. Even if the user tries to get rid of it by deleting it through history, the logs persist and will be loaded on any computer the user uses to log into his skype account with. A small desctiption of what is going on can be found here: http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=742753 It seems that users are just getting a hold of this thing happening.

Submission + - Windows 7 gets the Minority Report treatment using (gizmag.com)

cylonlover writes: In the 2002 movie Minority Report, part of the "way out there" 2054 technology was a computer system that Tom Cruise navigated his way through via arm and hand gestures. That technology – minus the holograms – has now officially arrived 44 years ahead of schedule, thanks to the design team at tech firm Evoluce. With support from Microsoft, the company has created prototype software which allows Microsoft's Kinect gesture-based video gaming platform to control Windows 7 applications.
Google

Submission + - Google Warns Irish Government Against Tax Increase

theodp writes: The Irish government has been given a stark warning from some of the biggest American companies in Ireland on the risk of a mass exodus if the country's controversial low corporate tax rate is raised in return for an IMF/EU bailout to shore up the country's beleaguered banking system. According to The Telegraph, a statement signed by senior execs at Microsoft, HP, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, and Intel points out that although Ireland's tax rate may be low in European terms, it is not when compared with locations such as Singapore, India and China. Separately, the head of Google's 2,000-strong European HQ in Dublin told the Belfast Telegraph that 'anything that impinges on Ireland's competitiveness is going to be a big thing for Google,' adding that, 'anything that increases the cost-base of a business is negative for competitiveness.' Or, as Tony Soprano might say, 'You'll be dead to me'.
NASA

Submission + - Comet Snow Is Pouring Out Of Hartley 2 (discovery.com) 1

astroengine writes: "On Nov. 4, NASA's EPOXI mission flew past the comet Hartley 2 and discovered something strange. According to a press conference held on Thursday, particles of ice are pouring from the comet at a rate of 300 tons of the stuff per hour. Some of ice has accumulated into clumps as large as basketballs. “When we first saw this our mouths just dropped. The whole thing just looked like a snow globe,” Brown University’s Pete Schultz, a mission scientist, told reporters."

Comment nook approval (Score 1) 684

I'm happy with it... mostly. You gotta plug it in everyday if you read it all day long, but it does have expandable memory up to 8 gigs, both wifi and modem and works flawless under Linux with Calibre working unexpectedly well, I say unexpectedly because in my version it's not officially supported but still sometimes I open it and my periodicals have been automatically uploaded to my suprise and they rendered well. Some of the plain txt file conversions with Calibre don't go so well, but haven't really fiddled with it yet. Haven't tried the web-browser or rooting it, but I can't imagine it would be very pretty, you might get a couple of hours out of it, but I think I would gnaw off my hands trying to type this summary of it onto the somewhat painful keyboard, of course I can't stand touchpads either. Comes with a somewhat limited dictionary, it can't find multiplexural. my summary wouldn't be complete if I didn't mention, Don't use it to play music, you get like an hour maybe two out of it and it's dead as a doornail. But maybe it was because I wasn't using headphones, sound was good, but still why'd they put such a teeny battery on the thing if they're going to sell it for close to 300 dollars!! I'd require either a longer Cable or easier battery swapping if I were to buy one for a friend, because they are fun to play with.

Comment Re:Tell them to stop using Windows (Score 1) 932

I would do this too(after letting them sit dead in the water with their broken computer) until one day you bring up... you know, so-and-so needs a new computer (!one that isn't OEM!) What would you be willing to put towards it? There's always an option once they take that miniscule step. Then go and max out their purchasing power..

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Linux is like water, 80 % of the surface of a habitable planet

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