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Submission + - Time Warner Cable online after widespread Net outage (usatoday.com)

Submitted by paysonwelch
paysonwelch writes: Time Warner Cable dealt with a major Internet outage early Wednesday.

During routine network maintenance at 4:30 a.m. ET today, "an issue with our Internet backbone created disruption with our Internet and On Demand services," said Time Warner Cable vice president for public relations Bobby Amirshahi in an email exchange.

"As of 6 a.m. ET, services were largely restored as updates continue to bring all customers back online," he said.

See also: http://www.cnet.com/news/time-...

Submission + - Some raindrops exceed their terminal velocity (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: New research reveals that some raindrops are “super-terminal” (they travel more than 30% faster than their terminal velocity, at which air resistance prevents further acceleration due to gravity). The drops are the result of natural processes—and they make up a substantial fraction of rainfall. Whereas all drops the team studied that were 0.8 millimeters and larger fell at expected speeds, between 30% and 60% of those measuring 0.3 mm dropped at super-terminal speeds. It’s not yet clear why these drops are falling faster than expected, the researchers say. But according to one notion, the speedy drops are fragments of larger drops that have broken apart in midair but have yet to slow down. If that is indeed the case, the researchers note, then raindrop disintegration happens normally in the atmosphere and more often than previously presumed—possibly when drops collide midair or become unstable as they fall through the atmosphere. Further study could improve estimates of the total amount of rainfall a storm will produce or the amount of erosion that it can generate.

Submission + - Free Law Casebook Project: Starts with IP Coursebook (duke.edu)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Duke Law School's James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins just published a CC licensed, freely downloadable textbook called "Intellectual Property Law and the Information Society." http://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/o... (Which includes a discussion of whether and when the term "intellectual property" is a dangerous misnomer). The book is apparently part of an attempt to lower what the authors describe as the "obscene cost" of legal textbooks. "This is the first in a series of free digital/low cost print legal educational materials to be published by Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain—starting with statutory supplements aimed at the basic classes. The goal of this project... is to improve the pricing and access norms of the world of legal textbook publishing, while offering the flexibility and possibility for customization that unfettered digital access provides. We hope it will provide a pleasant, restorative, competitive pressure on the commercial publishers to lower their prices and improve their digital access norms."
The book's "problems range from a video of the Napster oral argument to counseling clients about search engines and trademarks, applying the First Amendment to digital rights management and copyright or commenting on the Supreme Court’s new rulings on gene patents.. [The book] includes discussions of such issues as the Redskins trademark cancelations, the Google Books case and the America Invents Act."

Comment Re:Don't forget the Nokia and Skype purchases (Score 1) 316

by SpzToid (#47740217) Attached to: For Microsoft, $93B Abroad Means Avoiding $30B Tax Hit

one correction to what I just wrote above: Steve Ballmer paid 50% *more*, not less, for Nokia (about 3 billion dollars total) than he did for the LA Clippers basketball team (2 billion).

OK, buying the Clippers was his personal transaction using his own money, and the other was a Microsoft transaction under his authority, having ruined the Nokia Mobile Devices unit in the first place, but let's not try to split any of Ballmer's hair over that detail.

Comment Don't forget the Nokia and Skype purchases (Score 1) 316

by SpzToid (#47740195) Attached to: For Microsoft, $93B Abroad Means Avoiding $30B Tax Hit

Notice the numbers in TFA are following the Nokia and Skype purchases from several years ago. Skype cost Microsoft about 8 or 9 billion. Nokia cost Microsoft about 3 billion dollars (50% less than Ballmer paid for the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team, and using his own money).

In other words, The U.S. based Microsoft Corporation (HQ'd in Reno, NV to avoid paying taxes to Washington State) bought those non-US companies with off-shored income having paid very little tax to anyone, for anything. You and I can't buy companies so easily, but Microsoft can, and did.

Google paid 1.5 billion dollars for prime London real estate to build their office there, with the same type of Non-US, double-Dutch sandwich money. This is the way the game is played. And these large companies seriously lobby the US congress for a special tax repatriation holiday, as a way to negotiate a lower rate, if they are to chose to pay US taxes.

At least when Facebook paid 16 billion dollars for WhatsApp, they didn't use non-taxable offshore money, because they bought a US company.

Submission + - 13-year-old Finds Fungus Deadly to AIDS Patients Literally Grows on Trees (scienceblog.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers have pinpointed the environmental source of fungal infections that have been sickening HIV/AIDS patients in Southern California for decades. It literally grows on trees. The discovery is based on the science project of a 13-year-old girl, who spent the summer gathering soil and tree samples from areas around Los Angeles hardest hit by infections of the fungus named Cryptococcus gattii .

Submission + - Oregon Sues Oracle for an "Abysmal" Healthcare Website 1

Submitted by SpzToid
SpzToid writes: The state of Oregon sued Oracle America Inc. and six of its top executives Friday, accusing the software giant of fraud for failing to deliver a working website for the Affordable Care Act program.

The 126-page lawsuit claims Oracle has commmitted fraud, lies, and "a pattern of activity that has cost the State and Cover Oregon hundreds of millions of dollars".

"Not only were Oracle's claims lies, Oracle's work was abysmal", the lawsuit said. Oregon paid Oracle about $240.3 million for a system that never worked, the suit said.

“Today’s lawsuit clearly explains how egregiously Oracle has disserved Oregonians and our state agencies”, said Oregon Atty. Gen. Ellen Rosenblum in a written statement. “Over the course of our investigation, it became abundantly clear that Oracle repeatedly lied and defrauded the state. Through this legal action, we intend to make our state whole and make sure taxpayers aren’t left holding the bag.”

Oregon’s suit, alleges that Oracle, the largest tech contractor working on the website, made falsely convinced officials to buy “hundreds of millions of dollars of Oracle products and services that failed to perform as promised.” It is seeking $200 million in damages.

Oracle issued a statement saying the suit "is a desperate attempt to deflect blame from Cover Oregon and the governor for their failures to manage a complex IT project. The complaint is a fictional account of the Oregon Healthcare Project."

Comment Either use dual-sim or multiple SIP accounts (Score 1) 161

by SpzToid (#47719899) Attached to: Calif. Court Rules Businesses Must Reimburse Cell Phone Bills

Obviously a dual-SIM phone can alleviate this problem, as can a modern phone with multiple SIP accounts configured, assuming then you have a good data plan, or can live happily as a simple hotspot-whore, (and most people could!).

To cite a reference, these Nokia phones have SIP support within the OS, so battery life is excellent, compared to having to run an App just for SIP accounts, (like SIPdroid).

http://developer.nokia.com/com...

The Nokia N9 and N900 phones also have SIP support within the OS and battery life is very good. Hmmm, I never bothered to look, but what about Jolla's Sailfish? For that matter, does anyone else know of another low-energy SIP stack in-use? I don't think iOS offers it, but I've been wrong before.

As to how to get your company telephone line (DID) in a workable state so you can access it via SIP, well, you're on your own slashdotters. (Hint: lowest common denominator is something like an OBi110 PSTN FXO adapter). In fact an OBi110 and a Raspberry Pi runny asterisk/FreePBX can forward incoming calls from a DID to any pre-configured (mobile) phone number.

That's a simple solution. At which point separate telephone bills become trivial and automatic.

Submission + - Why Apple Is Not Suing Xiaomi - Yet (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by DavidGilbert99
DavidGilbert99 writes: Apple is still a relative new-comer to the Chinese market. In this market Xiaomi is now the biggest player, while Apple's isn't even in the top five smartphone vendors. Add to that uncertainty about enforcing patents in China, as well as a lack of detail about Xiaomi's own patents,and it is easy to see why Apple may not be willing to rock the boat — though that could all change if/when Xiaomi expands beyond China

Submission + - Death of the car: The tech behind Helsinki's ambitious plan to kill off private (zdnet.com)

Submitted by NBSCALIDBA
NBSCALIDBA writes: Eeva Haaramo (Norse Code), reports on Helsinki's Ambition plan to transform city transportation. From buses to bikes to Kutsuplus mini-transport vans, Findland's bold experiment in public/private enterprise offer an über-change in the way cities should look at the whole concept of getting around in a city.

Submission + - Recycled Car Batteries Transformed into Low-Cost Solar Panels

Submitted by rofkool
rofkool writes: MIT researcher have developed a method of transforming old lead-acid car batteries into long-lasting, low-cost solar panels.

It is estimated that a single battery could be used to produce enough solar cells to power up to 30 homes.

The discovery addresses two key problems: Firstly the problem of disposing of lead-acid batteries in an environmentally-responsible way, and secondly the difficulty of producing raw lead ore for use in solar cells.

Angela Belcher, W.M. Keck Professor of Energy at MIT and co-author of the study, said: "Once the battery technology evolves, over 200 million lead-acid batteries will potentially be retired in the United States, and that could cause a lot of environmental issues."

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