64939681
submission
walterbyrd writes:
A brand-new social networking startup — Ello — has gone viral. At one point on Thursday, the site was acquiring 31,000 new users an hour — many of whom flocked to there because of a disagreement with Facebook over its policy requiring real names, which some say is unfair to LGBTQ and transgender users.
Ello's founder, Paul Budnitz: "My partners and I had lost interest and were fed up with other social networks — exhausted by ads, clutter, and feeling manipulated and deceived by companies that clearly don't have our interests at heart"
64873945
submission
walterbyrd writes:
Youtube video has over 24 million hits so far. Unbox Therapy bends a new iPhone 6 with just hand pressure. Apple stock is down about 3.5% so far.
64668307
submission
walterbyrd writes:
A study conducted by the University of California system determined that 14 million white-collar jobs are threatened by the off-shoring trend, including office personnel, information technology, accounting, architects, engineering and design, data analysis, customer service and even legal services. You might even be working at one of these offshore companies or others like them.
64608085
submission
walterbyrd writes:
Microsoft Corp will close its Silicon Valley research-and-development operation as part of 2,100 layoffs announced on Thursday, as it moves toward its new CEO's goal of cutting 18,000 staff, or about 14 percent of its workforce.
64524329
submission
walterbyrd writes:
To many computer programmers, software patents look a lot like movie or music patents. A computer program is a sequence of abstract mathematical operations. The Supreme Court has long said that by themselves such mental steps are not patentable. And just as musical innovations didn't become patentable once musicians started recording music electronically, so software patent opponents don't think sequences of mathematical steps shouldn't become patentable just because a computer happens to be doing the calculations.
Of course, others disagree with this way of looking at it. Patent attorneys have had a lot of luck re-casting software patents as patents on machines that happen to run a particular type of computer program.
64502549
submission
walterbyrd writes:
MIT's big-cat-inspired robot has gotten some serious upgrades as researchers continue to improve its skills. It's come a long way since its first treadmill test, during which it was tethered up. It can now run free, and a new algorithm allows it to bound in a peppy manner while navigating the terrain of a grass lawn.
64416867
submission
walterbyrd writes:
So rich high-tech companies are using the H-1B visa program to keep wages down and to hire less expensive workers from abroad. Indeed, the same companies demanding more guest workers are laying off American workers in droves.
64407721
submission
walterbyrd writes:
This doesn't necessarily mean that all software patents are in danger — these are mostly patents that are particularly vulnerable to challenge under the new Alice precedent. But it does mean that the pendulum of patent law is now clearly swinging in an anti-patent direction. Every time a patent gets invalidated, it strengthens the bargaining position of every defendant facing a lawsuit from a patent troll.
64314469
submission
walterbyrd writes:
Why on earth should Google’s page be set up so as to favour Microsoft’s offerings? The two companies are competing in the search space, correct? Well, go compete then instead of whining to the politicians.
64090709
submission
walterbyrd writes:
1) Americans pay way, way, way more for health care than anyone else
2) We pay doctors when they provide lots of health care, not when they provide good health care
3) Half of all healthcare spending goes towards 5 percent of the population
4) Our health insurance system is the product of random WWII-era tax provisions
5) Insurance companies have small profit margins
6) Getting health care in the United States is dangerous
7) One third of healthcare spending isn't helping
8) Obamacare is not universal health care
63898877
submission
walterbyrd writes:
The federal government is spending nearly $1 million to create an online database that will track “misinformation” and hate speech on Twitter.
The National Science Foundation is financing the creation of a web service that will monitor “suspicious memes” and what it considers “false and misleading ideas,” with a major focus on political activity online.
The “Truthy” database, created by researchers at Indiana University, is designed to “detect political smears, astroturfing, misinformation, and other social pollution.”
The university has received $919,917 so far for the project.
63827847
submission
walterbyrd writes:
Microsoft Corp. is currently sitting on almost $29.6 billion it would owe in U.S. taxes if it repatriated the $92.9 billion of earnings it is keeping offshore, according to disclosures in the company’s most recent annual filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The amount of money that Microsoft is keeping offshore represents a significant spike from prior years, and the levies the company would owe amount to almost the entire two-year operating budget of the company’s home state of Washington.
63780673
submission
walterbyrd writes:
Fresh on the heels of the entire Munich and Linux debacle, another story involving Microsoft and free software has popped up across the world, in Chile. A prolific magazine from the South American country says that the powerful Microsoft lobby managed to turn around a law that would allow the authorities to use free software.
63723091
submission
walterbyrd writes:
A new study by researchers at Harvard and the University of Texas provides some insight on this question. Drawing from data on litigation, R&D spending, and patent citations, the researchers find that firms that are forced to pay NPEs (either because they lost a lawsuit or settled out of court) dramatically reduce R&D spending: losing firms spent $211 million less on R&D, on average, than firms that won a lawsuit against a troll.
"After losing to NPEs, firms significantly reduce R&D spending — both projects inside the firm and acquiring innovative R&D outside the firm," the authors write. "Our evidence suggests that it really is the NPE litigation event that causes this decrease in innovation.
63679593
submission
walterbyrd writes:
A research team led by University of Chicago scientists have discovered a new methodology to document quantum mechanical behavior of electrons contained in the flaws of diamonds. The scientists blasted a region of a diamond that contained a nitrogen atom with repeated, quick pulses of a laser beam, which enabled the team to control the quantum state of the area as well as observe the electron state of a single electron.
