Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Businesses

Banking Via Twitter? 193

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the what-not-to-do dept.
In the latest example of how just because you can do something doesn't mean you should, one credit union has decided to offer a new feature, dubbed "tweetMyMoney," that allows members to interact with their accounts via Twitter. Can't wait for the next version, "tweetSomeoneElsesMoney." "tweetMyMoney, available exclusively to Vantage members! With tweetMyMoney, you can monitor your account balance, deposits, withdrawals, holds and cleared checks with simple commands. And, you can even transfer funds within your account. It's all available on Twitter, 24/7!"
The Military

F-22 Raptor Cancelled 829

Posted by timothy from the waiter-there's-a-fly-in-my-fighter dept.
BayaWeaver writes "Slate reports that the F-22 Raptor has been cancelled by the Senate. At an estimated price tag of $339 million per aircraft, even the powerful military-industrial-congressional complex couldn't keep this Cold War program alive in these hard times. They look very cool though and have appeared in movies like Hulk and Transformers. But not to worry too much about the future of the military-industrial-congressional complex: the F-35 Lightning II begins production next year! As a side note, in 2007 a squadron of Raptors became deaf, dumb and blind when they flew over the International Date Line."

Comment Re:A sad day (Score 1) 294

by Autumnmist (#27939797) Attached to: Breast Cancer Gene Lawsuit Argues Patents Invalid

You missed the context of that quotation. Myriad's patent gives it the "exclusive right to perform diagnostic tests on the genes" because the patent covers, among other things, the "normal" sequence of the genes! The patent also covers the fact that mutations in the gene greatly increase the risk of developing cancer.

No one else can offer an alternative test because... well, how can you test someone for a disease-causing mutation without comparing their sequence to the "normal" sequence? (Hint: You can't!) How can you test someone for a disease-causing mutation in a gene when the fact that mutations in the gene cause disease is patented? You can't!

Comment Re:I don't understand it. (Score 2, Informative) 294

by Autumnmist (#27939703) Attached to: Breast Cancer Gene Lawsuit Argues Patents Invalid

Nope you are both wrong. This *IS* about the gene itself. The patent is extremely broad and covers such things as:

1) the "normal" sequence of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes
2) the fact that various mutations in those genes are associated with breast cancer

Researchers/doctors are unable to offer alternative tests because offering a test requires being able to compare a patient's sequence with the (patented) "normal" sequence. But Myriad refuses to allow this, so even scientists doing basic research can't sequence their subject's BRCA1/2 genes!!!

Since Myriad Genetics even owns a patent on the "fact" that certain mutations are associated with disease, researchers/doctors aren't even allowed to interpret the results for their patients because doing so would utilized the patented fact that the patient's mutation is associated with breast cancer.

Read the article and/or complaint filed. This lawsuit has been a LONG time coming.

YEs it IS that ridiculous. The patent office was dumb/ignorant when they awarded the patents and it's about time this mistake was challenged.

Comment Re:Procedures (Score 1) 294

by Autumnmist (#27939629) Attached to: Breast Cancer Gene Lawsuit Argues Patents Invalid

You're wrong. If you read the article or the complaint or the ACLU writeup or any of the scientific commentary, you'd see that the patent is in fact on the actual SEQUENCE of the gene(s)! This makes it impossible for anyone to do something like, for example, develop an alternative test because it's impossible to offer an alternative test when the "normal" sequence is patented.

In this particular case, Myriad Genetics even owns a patent on the "fact" that certain mutations are associated with disease, such that researchers/doctors aren't even allowed to interpret the results for their patients because doing so would utilized the patented fact that the patient's mutation is associated with breast cancer.

That's why this lawsuit has been a long time coming. Good luck to ACLU/PUBPAT/etc.
Education

College Police Think Using Linux Is Suspicious Behavior 1079

Posted by CmdrTaco from the so-is-your-mom dept.
FutureDomain writes "The Boston College Campus Police have seized the electronics of a computer science student for allegedly sending an email outing another student. The probable cause? The search warrant application states that he is 'a computer science major' and he uses 'two different operating systems for hiding his illegal activity. One is the regular B.C. operating system and the other is a black screen with white font which he uses prompt commands on.' The EFF is currently representing him."

Comment DevonThink on a Mac (Score 2, Insightful) 211

by Autumnmist (#27509385) Attached to: Building a Searchable Literature Archive With Keywords?

If your professor uses a Mac, consider Devonthink by DevonTechnologies.
http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/devonthink/index.html

For searching, the software has an artificial intelligence system, keywords, meta data. It can store PDFs, word docs, emails, notes. It can be integrated with a scanner so you can scan and store documents in the database. It's got OCR built in...

I have DevonThink (personal edition, not Pro/Office) and I don't even use 1/10 of the power built into this system. You should check out some of the reviews online and videos of people using DevonThink.
Data Storage

Building a Searchable Literature Archive With Keywords? 211

Posted by timothy from the must-be-in-here-somewhere dept.
Sooner Boomer writes "I'm trying to help drag a professor I work with into the 20th century. Although he is involved in cutting-edge research (nanotechnology), his method of literature search is to begin with digging through the hundreds of 3-ring binders that contain articles (usually from PDFs) that he has printed out. Even though the binders are labeled, the articles can only go under one 'heading' and there's no way to do a keyword search on subject, methods, materials, etc. Yeah, google is pretty good for finding stuff, as are other on-line literature services, but they only work for articles that are already on-line. His literature also includes articles copied from books, professional correspondence, and other sources. Is there a FOSS database or archive method (preferably with a web interface) where he could archive the PDFs and scanned documents and be able to search by keywords? It would also be nice to categorize them under multiple subject headings if possible. I know this has been covered ad nauseum with things like photos and the like, but I'm not looking at storage as such: instead I'm trying to find what's stored."
Social Networks

Personality Testing For Employment 581

Posted by kdawson from the strongly-disagree dept.
Thelasko writes "While I was in college, I had the opportunity to take an elective course in Industrial Psychology. One section of the course covered hiring practices and the validity of 'personality testing' to screen applicants (Google link for non-subscribers). The Wall Street Journal has a long article discoursing on how such tests are used in today's economy. While personality tests may be designed to uncover underlying personality traits such as honesty, critics claim that the tests instead reward cheaters." The article talks mostly about the tests' use in winnowing candidates for retail positions — deciding whom to interview. Anybody encountered them in an IT or more technical context?
The Courts

Thomson Reuters Sues Over Open-Source Endnote-Alike Zotero 181

Posted by timothy from the gmu-also-home-of-econtalk dept.
Noksagt writes "Thomson Reuters, the owner of the Endnote reference management software, has filed a $10 million lawsuit and a request for injunction against the Commonwealth of Virginia. Virginia's George Mason University develops Zotero, a free and open source plugin to Mozilla Firefox that researchers may use to manage citations. Thomson alleges that GMU's Center for History and New Media reverse engineered Endnote and that the beta version of Zotero can convert (in violation of the Endnote EULA) the proprietary style files that are used by Endnote to format citations into the open CSL file format."

Comment Re:Classic problem. (Score 3, Interesting) 567

by Autumnmist (#25063011) Attached to: Should Organic Chemistry Be a Premed Requirement?

I'm not saying I think it's a *bad* idea for doctors to think like scientists.... but they don't. (speaking as a scientist who took classes with premeds)

Our current system for picking/grooming future doctors almost always selects for the least scientifically-minded students--science is the opposite of memorization, but the students who memorize the best are the ones who get into the best med schools.

MD-PhDs are very very different from regular MDs.
Music

Submission + - Apple cracks down on the Hymn Project (hymn-project.org) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Ever since the initial launch of the iTunes Music Store, an intrepid group of programmers over at the Hymn Project have engaged in a marvelous cat-and-mouse game with Apple. Now they're finally being hobbled by Apple's lawyers.

The purpose of the project has always been to provide software that can be used to losslessly remove Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection from music purchased through iTunes, so that the buyer may exercise their right of fair use and play the music on non-Apple devices (Hear Your Music aNywhere).

The software has gone through many incarnations. The original hymn has been succeeded by JHymn, QTFairUse6, MyFairTunes, and others. Regardless of the program, the emphasis has always been squarely on fair use — not piracy. Any discussions of piracy have been strongly and actively discouraged on the site's forums.

For years now, Apple has been content to mostly ignore the Hymn Project. At worst, they would introduce subtle changes to new versions of iTunes that would break the Hymn software. Nobody really knows if this was done intentionally, but it was usually just a matter of time before a new solution was found. This seemed like a reasonable approach for Apple to take. After all, why should they care? The DRM was only in place to placate the record companies. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has even expressed his opinion that all music should be free of DRM.

Well, now things have changed. Recently, a new program called Requiem was announced that appears to be a complete crack of the iTunes DRM scheme. Previous programs had relied on various forms of trickery or memory hooks to access the unencrypted audio data — none had ever completely cracked the encryption algorithms.

Requiem seems to have been the last straw. Earlier this week, the ISP hosting the site received a Cease and Desist order from Apple Legal, demanding that all downloads be removed from the site, and that the site post no links to any programs that could remove DRM from Apple music or video. Reportedly, similar C & D orders were also sent to at least one of the project's developers, and to another ISP where Reqiuem had been hosted. Ironically, Requiem was never actually hosted on the Hymn site — merely mentioned and linked to in one of the forums. Nevertheless, the Hymn Project has now come into the crosshairs of Apple's lawyers and, lacking legal resources, has seen no choice but to comply with the order.
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA expert debunked by Prof. Pouwelse (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Last year the Slashdot community "went medieval" on the testimony of the RIAA's "expert witness", Dr. Doug Jacobson, in UMG v. Lindor. Our friends at Groklaw did likewise. Now you can compare notes with a formally retained expert witness, Prof. Johan Pouwelse of Delft University — one of the world's foremost experts on the science of P2P file sharing and the very same Prof. Pouwelse who stopped the RIAA's Netherlands clone in its tracks back in 2005 — who has weighed in with his expert witness report characterizing Dr. Jacobson's work as "borderline incompetence". p2pnet calls the report a devastating blow to the RIAA's expert. (And in the shameless-plug department, if you enjoyed reading Prof. Pouwelse's report, and want to continue helping to get the truth out to judges and juries about the technology and science of the internet, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to the Expert Witness Defense Fund maintained by the Free Software Foundation, which provides funding for expert witnesses and other technical consultants who are assisting defendants in the RIAA cases)."
The Almighty Buck

Gates Foundation Vs. Openness In Research 150

Posted by kdawson from the not-far-from-the-tree dept.
An anonymous reader writes "There have been complaints within the World Health Organization of some oddly familiar-sounding tactics and attitudes by the Gates Foundation. Scientists who were once open with their research are now 'locked up in a cartel' and are financially motivated to support other scientists backed by the Foundation. Diversity of views is 'stifled,' dominance is bought, and Foundation views are pushed with 'intense and aggressive opposition.'" The article tries hard for balance. It notes that the WHO official who raised the alarm on the Gates Foundation's unintended consequences on world health research is "an openly undiplomatic official who won admiration for reorganizing the world fight against tuberculosis but was ousted from that job partly because he offended donors like the Rockefeller Foundation."

Slashdot Top Deals

A list is only as strong as its weakest link. -- Don Knuth

Close