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Comment Easiest and Best Solution (Score 1) 604

by TheGrapeApe (#25899877) Attached to: Rewriting a Software Product After Quitting a Job?
I was in a similar situation, but where "conflict of interest" was the issue at hand instead of IP/Copyright issues.

Do what I did; Get someone who *didn't* work with you guys to be your "frontman", and have him do the sales...and even say he coded it. Shut up and don't tell the people you used to work with what you're doing and you can't get caught.
The Internet

Comcast Has 30 Days To 'Fess Up About P2P Throttling 262

Posted by timothy from the must-bring-enough-throttle-for-the-whole-class dept.
negRo_slim writes with some welcome news from Ars Technica: "Comcast has 30 days to disclose the details of its 'unreasonable network management practices' to the Federal Communications Commission, the agency warned Wednesday morning as it released its full, 67-page Order. As FCC Chair Kevin Martin said it would, the Commission's Order rejects the ISP giant's insistence that its handling of peer-to-peer applications was necessary. 'We conclude that the company's discriminatory and arbitrary practice unduly squelches the dynamic benefits of an open and accessible Internet,' the agency declares." And from reader JagsLive comes news that Comcast has a different plan in place to deal with heavy bandwidth users: slow traffic for up to 20 minutes at a time to users who are grabbing the most bits.
Hardware Hacking

Amateur Scientists Seek Fusion Reaction 401

Posted by kdawson from the things-that-hopefully-do-not-go-boom dept.
ElvaWSJ writes "A small subculture of amateur physicists and science-fiction fans — fewer than 100 worldwide — are building working nuclear-fusion reactors at home. The designs are based on the work of Philo T. Farnsworth, an inventor of television, from the 1960s. Some of these hobbyists hope similar reactors can one day power the planet, but so far they consume more energy than they create."
Technology

The First Paper-Based Transistors 177

Posted by kdawson from the bend-me-shape-me dept.
Roland Piquepaille found news of research out of Portugal that has resulted in the first paper-based transistors (the original article is less informative than Roland's blog). More precisely, they've made the first field effect transistors (FET) with a paper interstrate layer. According to the research team, such transistors offer the same level of performance as 'state-of-the-art, oxide-based thin film transistors produced on glass or crystalline silicon substrates.' Possible applications include disposable electronics devices, such as paper displays, smart labels, bio-applications or RFID tags. The research will be published in IEEE Electron Device Letters in September.
Democrats

Submission + - Republican Bloggers vs. Reality?

Submitted by TheGrapeApe
TheGrapeApe writes: Apparently the article posted on Slashdot earlier today ("Nancy Pelosi vs. The Internet") positing that Pelosi wanted to clamp down on House Members using blogs caused enough of a stir to elicit an official response from Mike Capuano, the chairman of the House Franking Committee

First, the ONLY item we seek to address is LOOSENING existing rules to allow Members to post videos ... We are not currently seeking to address anything other than video — not blog postings, online chats or any other written form of communication anywhere on the internet. Any assertion to the contrary is a lie...Our approach allows the American public to have full access to information from Members while ensuring that taxpayer dollars do not support commercial or political advertising on the web. Certainly, there may be other means to achieve that goal and I am open to that discussion. What I am not open to is the intentional distortion of deliberative discussions for the sole purpose of scaring some segment of the public.

As someone who follows politics, I found it a little hard to believe that Pelosi really wanted to stifle blogs as an outlet of political communication; Especially considering that her blog and on-line presence seems to generate quite a bit more traffic than that of her Republican counterpart.

Science

Bizarre Properties of Glass Allow Creation of "Metallic Glass" 265

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the wonder-woman-unavailable-for-comment dept.
VindictivePantz writes to mention that scientists have discovered some bizarre properties of glass and are already applying that knowledge to create what is being called "metallic glass." "The breakthrough involved solving the decades-old problem of just what glass is. It has been known that that despite its solid appearance, glass and gels are actually in a 'jammed' state of matter — somewhere between liquid and solid — that moves very slowly. Like cars in a traffic jam, atoms in a glass are in something like suspended animation, unable to reach their destination because the route is blocked by their neighbors. So even though glass is a hard substance, it never quite becomes a proper solid, according to chemists and materials scientists."
Robotics

Polar Robots to Explore the Arctic 98

Posted by timothy from the robot-siberia dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "It's now almost certain that the world's ice shelves are melting. And while satellites provide lots of data about their evolution, ground-based weather stations could be even more useful. But if scientists can no longer stay on fragile and volatile ice sheets, what can they do? They can use specially designed robots called SnoMotes developed by U.S. researchers. 'The SnoMotes work as a team, autonomously collaborating among themselves to cover all the necessary ground to gather assigned scientific measurements.' More importantly, a SnoMote is an 'expendable rover that wouldn't break a research team's bank if it were lost during an experiment,' according to the lead researcher." Reader coondoggie adds a link to another story on these robots at Network World.
Microsoft

Submission + - MS Word Metadata causes problems for 527 group

Submitted by TheGrapeApe
TheGrapeApe writes: Legally, 527 groups (remember the "Swiftboat" guys?) are forbidden by the Federal Election Commission to coordinate their efforts with any candidate or party groups in any way, shape or form. (And for good reason; They do not have to abide by the same strict standards of transparency in their operations that normal political groups do.) Unfortunately for Republican shadow group "Freedom's Watch", they forgot to remove metadata from a Microsoft Word document that they distributed to the press that seems to indicate that they did just that; Plainly visible in the document properties is the string "NRCC" or National Republican Congressional Committee — The official house campaign arm of the Republican party. Democratic party officials have filed a complaint with the FEC about the incident..
Wii

An Older Demographic May Soon Dominate Gaming 234

Posted by Zonk from the say-goodbye-to-the-hardcore- dept.
Reservoir Hill writes "An article from last week runs down the new mass audience for gaming among families, women and older people. The importance of the mass audience in gaming's spectacular growth is seen most clearly in the success of Nintendo's Wii, which is far outselling its more technically advanced hardware competitors, the Xbox 360 from Microsoft and PlayStation 3 from Sony. Wii Play was the No. 2-selling game of last year even though it received an abysmal score of 58 out of 100 at Metacritic, which aggregates reviews. The Times says that as video games become more popular hard-core gamers are becoming an ever smaller part of the audience. 'Paradoxically, at a moment when technology allows designers to create ever more complex and realistic single-player fantasies, the growth in the now $18 billion gaming market is in simple, user-friendly experiences that families and friends can enjoy together.'"
Software

Particle Swarm Optimization for Picture Analysis 90

Posted by Zonk from the new-uses-old-techniques dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is a computer algorithm based on a mathematical model of the social interactions of swarms which was first described in 1995. Now, researchers in the UK and Jordan have carried this swarm approach to photography to 'intelligently boost contrast and detail in an image without distorting the underlying features.' This looks like a clever concept even if I haven't seen any results. The researchers have developed an iterative process where a swarm of images are created by a computer. These images are 'graded relative to each other, the fittest end up at the front of the swarm until a single individual that is the most effectively enhanced.'"
Toys

Hitachi Does Microsoft Surface Without the Table 110

Posted by Zonk from the enless-variations-on-a-really-cool-theme dept.
An anonymous reader writes "According to CNET.co.uk, who randomly stumbled into a booth at CES, Toshiba has created a Microsoft Surface-type system without the unwieldy table. 'The StarBoard system is really two technologies in one. Firstly, it features Hitachi's short-throw LCD projector. This is important, because the projector sits mere inches from the interactive surface. This means you get a huge — 50-inch, in fact — bright screen, which doesn't get blocked out by your head as you lean over the table. The image it projects is incredibly high-quality too, and there was no noticeable distortion.' The video attached to the article shows the system in action." It should be noted that the implication that leaning over the table blocks a projection from above is spurious; the Surface projects an image from below. The 'overhead' setup at CES was a camera designed to show onlookers what was taking place on the table.
Mozilla

UI Designers Hired by Mozilla 245

Posted by CmdrTaco from the maybe-they-can-fix-the-leaks dept.
ta bu shi da yu writes "Mozilla has hired several developers from Humanized. According to Ars Technica, Humanized is a "small software company that is known for its considerable usability expertise and innovative user interface design. The Humanized developers will be working at Mozilla Labs on Firefox and innovative new projects.""
Space

Black Hole Blasts Neighbor Galaxy with Deadly Jet 222

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the no-star-system-will-dare-oppose-the-emperor-now dept.
butterwise writes to mention that astronomers have, for the first time, witnessed a super-massive black hole hitting a nearby galaxy with a "death-star-like" beam of energy. The story also has a video with simulations, pictures, and explanations. "The 'death star galaxy,' as NASA astronomers called it, could obliterate the atmospheres of planets but also trigger the birth of stars in the wake of its destructive beam. Fortunately, the cosmic violence is a safe distance from our own neck of the cosmos."
Google

Google Gives Up IP of Anonymous Blogger 386

Posted by kdawson from the balancing-rights dept.
An anonymous reader alerts us to a story out of Israel in which Google (its Israeli subsidiary) gave up the IP address of a Blogger user without being compelled to do so by a court. A preliminary ruling was issued in which a court indicated that the slander the blogger was accused of probably rose to the level of a criminal violation. Google Israel then made a deal with the plaintiffs, local city councilmen whom the blogger had been attacking for a year. Google disclosed the IP address only to the court, which posted a message (Google says the anonymous blogger got it) inviting him/her to contest the ruling anonymously. When no response was received within 3 days, Google turned over the IP address to the plaintiffs' lawyers.
Republicans

Federal Science Gets More Politicized 567

Posted by kdawson from the fact-based-policy-making dept.
amigoro writes to let us know about the noise a group of scientists is making to call attention to Executive Order 13422, going into effect today, that gives political appointees final say regarding science-based federal agency regulations. The Union of Concerned Scientists wrote a letter to two Senate committee chairs urging that questions about this executive order be asked at the confirmation hearings for the nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget. "UCS urged the Senate committee to ask [the nominee] Mr. Nussle how he would ensure that political appointees would not interfere with the work of agency scientists." Late last month the House voted to prohibit the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs from spending federal money on Executive Order 13422. Democrats called the order a "power grab."

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