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

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Privacy

Submission + - Woman arrested at ABIA after refusing enhanced pat (kvue.com) 1

Submitted by masterwit
masterwit writes: In the wake of recent articles involving the arguable privacy issues and constitutional rights violations involved with the new technology employed by the TSA , back scanners...this happened:
The article states: "One of the first people in line after that shutdown never made it through. She was arrested and banned from the airport.
Claire Hirschkind, 56, who says she is a rape victim and who has a pacemaker-type device implanted in her chest, says her constitutional rights were violated. She says she never broke any laws. But the Transportation Security Administration disagrees."
It will be interesting to see the fallout from this unfortunate situation.

Submission + - Woz on Neutrality (theatlantic.com)

Submitted by
MrShaggy
MrShaggy writes: ""s. On the other hand, I'm a founder of the EFF and I care a lot about individuals and their own importance. Finally, the thought hit me that every time and in every way that the telecommunications careers have had power or control, we the people wind up getting screwed. Every audience that I speak this statement and phrase to bursts into applause.""

Submission + - HIV Cured in Man by Stem Cells (aidsmap.com)

Submitted by Entropy98
Entropy98 writes: Doctors who carried out a stem cell transplant on an HIV-infected man with leukaemia in 2007 say they now believe the man to have been cured of HIV infection as a result of the treatment, which introduced stem cells which happened to be resistant to HIV infection.

The man received bone marrow from a donor who had natural resistance to HIV infection; this was due to a genetic profile which led to the CCR5 co-receptor being absent from his cells. The most common variety of HIV uses CCR5 as its ‘docking station’, attaching to it in order to enter and infect CD4 cells, and people with this mutation are almost completely protected against infection.

The case was first reported at the 2008 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston, and Berlin doctors subsequently published a detailed case history in the New England Journal of Medicine in February 2009.

They have now published a follow-up report in the journal Blood, arguing that based on the results of extensive tests, “It is reasonable to conclude that cure of HIV infection has been achieved in this patient.”
Nintendo

Submission + - Celebrate the 20th anniversay of the Game Boy (facebook.com)

Submitted by Zcomuto
Zcomuto writes: On 28th of September, it'll be exactly 20 years since the original Game Boy praised our lands! Bringing us fantastic entertianment such as Pokémon, Mario Land, Tetris and more! I propose that on this day, we — the public — collect our dusty ol' Game boys (Be they original, pocket, color — even Advance) and play them on the get-go to show that we still care and appreciate what the magical device has given us all. Leave your PSP, DS and mp3 players at home and be proud to show your retro side to the public!

Submission + - Competitor threatens suit - counter DMCA takedown?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Zen Magnets, a maker of neodymium magnets, has been under assault by the much larger and better distributed Buckyballs, a maker of a nearly identical toy. After Zen Magnets listed a couple of eBay auctions with a set of Buckyballs and a set of their own, asking customers to decide which was higher quality, Buckyballs replied with a legal threat. Zen Magnets responded with an open video response, in which they presented the voicemail from Buckyballs and demonstrated their claims of quality through repeatable, factual tests, providing quantitative data to back up their assertions.

Soon after, Buckyballs CEO Jake Bronstein got the video taken down from Youtube via a DMCA takedown, despite the fact that the only elements not made by Zen Magnets are the voicemail he left and some images of himself, which are low resolution and publicly available online.

Zen Magnets is now asking for help as they don't know what to do. It's appalling and I can't imagine that it is infringing, but I am not a lawyer. What would you do in this scenario?

(I am affiliated with neither company, although Thinkgeek sells Buckyballs...Slashdot & ThinkGeek share a corporate overlord.)

Submission + - Mother wins MMR case (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A mother from the UK has won her case claiming that the MMR vaccine severely retarded her child. The main factor in her winning the case was, as the panel put it, "the balance of probabilities". A doctor Michael Fitzpatrick said, "...although a causal link has been established in law in this instance, exhaustive scientific research has failed to establish any link between MMR and brain damage." (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7970199/Mother-wins-MMR-payout-after-18-years.html) Since when did law trump exhaustive scientific research in scientific matters?

It's a shock that such a case has succeeded as, despite the mother's claims that she is not anti-vaccination and it has been stated in every article which prints the story that it does not confirm a link between MMR and autism, this will only fuel the anti-vaccination movement.

Does anyone else find this story slightly troubling?
Education

Submission + - NoSlang Translates Teens' Texts for Parents (cnn.com)

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "CNN reports that in 2005 software engineer Ryan Jones created noslang.com and as more readers have submitted terms related to drugs and sex, what started out as a fun little lexicon of innocuous shortcuts has become a valuable educational tool for parents to learn about what their children are up to because Jones has now made it his mission to help parents detect when their children are discussing dangerous activities online. In his online dictionary, there are thousands of slang terms related to drugs and sex (there are 88 drug shortcuts beginning with the letter "a" alone). "A- boot," for example, means someone is under the influence of drugs, "cu46" means "see you for sex," and "gnoc" means "get naked on cam," meaning a webcam. "Whether you're a parent, teacher, law enforcement officer or simply a concerned friend — it's important to stay up to date on the latest drug-related slang terms," writes Jones. "Parents write me thank you notes all the time, and I occasionally get hate letters from teens.""
Security

Submission + - Internet Explorer most vulnerable, slowest to fix (blogspot.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Security researcher scarybeasts has finally revealed full details of a subtle CSS-based browser hack first disclosed back in 2009. Of the five major browsers, four of them have fixes. The holdout is Internet Explorer. Interestingly, not only is Internet Explorer the slowest to patch. It is also by far the most dangerously affected. Best use an alternate browser if you value the integrity of your webmail account.
The Military

Submission + - US deploys "heat-ray" in Afghanistan (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Koreantoast
Koreantoast writes: The United States military has deployed Raytheon's newly developed Active Denial System (ADS), a millimeter-wave, "non-lethal" heat-ray to Afghanistan. The weapon generates a "burning sensation" that is supposedly harmless, with the military claiming that the chance of injury is at less than 0.1%; numerous volunteers including reporters over the last several years have experienced its effects during various trials and demonstrations. While US military spokesperson Lt. Col. John Dorrian states that the weapon has not yet been operationally used, the tense situation in theater will ensure its usage soon enough. Proponents of ADS believe the system may help limit civilian deaths in counterinsurgency operations and provide new, safer ways to disperse crowds and control riots, but opponents fear that the system's long-term effects are not fully known and that the device may even be used for torture. Regardless, if ADS is successful in the field, we'll probably see this mobile microwave at your next local protest or riot.
Music

Submission + - RIAA in the red on piracy lawsuits (betanews.com)

Submitted by NicknamesAreStupid
NicknamesAreStupid writes: Betanews reports that the Recording Industry Association of America, notorious for their aggressive lawsuits, is getting a two percent return on their nearly $60 million in legal expenses. That is more than the RIAA pays itself. Recording artists must be happy to know that they are losing 50 times more to lawyers than to pirates.
NASA

Submission + - Earth's upper atmosphere collapses. None know why (csmonitor.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: An upper layer of Earth's atmosphere recently collapsed in an unexpectedly large contraction, the sheer size of which has scientists scratching their heads, NASA announced Thursday.
The layer of gas – called the thermosphere – is now rebounding again. This type of collapse is not rare, but its magnitude shocked scientists.

"This is the biggest contraction of the thermosphere in at least 43 years," said John Emmert of the Naval Research Lab, lead author of a paper announcing the finding in the June 19 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters. "It's a Space Age record."

The collapse occurred during a period of relative solar inactivity – called a solar minimum from 2008 to 2009. These minimums are known to cool and contract the thermosphere, however, the recent collapse was two to three times greater than low solar activity could explain.

Submission + - A Whale of a Ship going to the Gulf? (hamptonroads.com)

Submitted by ColdWetDog
ColdWetDog writes: The "A Whale" a VLOO (Very Large Oil / Ore) Carrier refitted to be the world's largest oil skimmer with the capacity to at least partially clean 500,000 barrels of contaminated seawater may be headed to the Gulf of Mexico's Deepwater Horizon blowout to help with the cleanup. The vessel has never been fully tested and has a number of administrative and governmental hoops to clear. According to the CEO of the Taiwanese shipping company that designed a built the thing the concept behind the craft is "totally not common sense and totally against the rules."

I for one, welcome our totally not common sense oil sucking Taiwanese overlords. A bit more here. but I couldn't find a whole lot of really technical stuff on the seagoing monster.
Patents

Submission + - Bilski v. Kappos decision is out; SFLC reacts. (softwarefreedom.org) 1

Submitted by kfogel
kfogel writes: The Supreme Court of the U.S. has released its decision in Bilski v. Kappos — it's an affirmation, but still a messy decision that doesn't go as far as we'd like in striking down business method patents. The Software Freedom Law Center has a great response up. Says SFLC chairman Eben Moglen: "The confusion and uncertainty behind today's ruling guarantees that the issues involved in Bilski v. Kappos will have to return to the Supreme Court after much money has been wasted and much innovation obstructed."
Patents

Submission + - Supreme Court to Bilski: Your claims are invalid (supremecourt.gov)

Submitted by reebmmm
reebmmm writes: The Supreme Court just decided the long-awaited case against Bernard Bilski: Federal Circuit Affirmed Unsurprisingly, the Court found Bilski's claims invalid because they were ineligible subject matter under Section 101 of the patent law. In a decision (with a concurrences by Breyer and Stevens), Justice Kennedy wrote of Bilski's claims: "petitioners' claims are not patentable processes because they are attempts to patent abstract ideas. Indeed, all members of the Court agree that the patent application at issue here falls out-side of 101 because it claims an abstract idea." The Court rejected the Federal Circuit's "machine or transformation test" as the sole test for patent eligibility. The Court made clear the while the machine or transformation test may be a useful tool, it is not the only test. The Court noted that the patent law does not exclude business methods. The Court declined to render all software patents invalid.

It is important to emphasize that the Court today is not commenting on the patentability of any particular invention, let alone holding that any of the above-mentioned technologies from the Information Age should or should not receive patent protection. This Age puts the possibility of innovation in the hands of more people and raises new difficulties for the patent law. With ever more people trying to innovate and thus seeking patent protections for their inventions, the patent law faces a great challenge in striking the balance between protecting inventors and not granting monopolies over procedures that others would discover by independent, creative application of general principles. Nothing in this opinion should be read to take a position on where that balance ought to be struck.

Slashdot take home: software patents may still be valid.

Slashdot Top Deals

2.4 statute miles of surgical tubing at Yale U. = 1 I.V.League

Close