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Patents

Uniloc Patent Case Against Rackspace Tossed for Bogus Patents 76

Posted by Unknown Lamer
from the don't-mess-with-red-hat dept.
netbuzz writes "A federal judge in Texas, presiding over a district notorious for favoring patent trolls, has summarily dismissed all claims relating to a case brought by Uniloc USA against Rackspace for [Linux] allegedly infringing upon [Uniloc's] patents. Red Hat defended Rackspace in the matter and issued a press release saying: 'In dismissing the case, Chief Judge Leonard Davis found that Uniloc's claim was unpatentable under Supreme Court case law that prohibits the patenting of mathematical algorithms. This is the first reported instance in which the Eastern District of Texas has granted an early motion to dismiss finding a patent invalid because it claimed unpatentable subject matter.'" You can't patent floating point math after all.
Privacy

Newspaper That Published Gun-Owners List Hires Armed Guards 1435

Posted by samzenpus
from the hoisting-with-your-own-petard dept.
inode_buddha writes "Not long ago we ran a story about how a NY newspaper published lists of gun owners. Now, it seems the same newspaper has hired armed guards in response to unspecified threats to the editor, amid 'large volumes of negative response.' From the article: 'The editor, Caryn McBride, told police the newspaper hired a private security company whose "employees are armed and will be on site during business hours," the report said. The guards are protecting the newspaper's staff and Rockland County offices in West Nyack, New York.'"
Bug

Avira Premium Anti-Virus Bug Disables Windows Machines 151

Posted by timothy
from the malware-writers-have-won dept.
New submitter Adesso writes "Anti-virus vendor Avira is having difficulty with an update of all their Premium customers. An update that has been downloaded over 70 million times is causing the 32-bit version of Windows to block almost all critical applications. Avira has responded promptly with an interim solution for this problem. In most cases this causes Windows to not boot properly."
Government

US Metaphor-Recognizing Software System Starts Humming 105

Posted by samzenpus
from the bright-ideas dept.
coondoggie writes "An innovative project, called Autonomous Dynamic Analysis of Metaphor and Analogy, or ADAMA, aims to build a software system that can automatically analyze metaphorical speech in five different languages by analyzing huge quantities of online data got off the ground this week when the U.S. Army Research Laboratory awarded a $1.4 million contract to the team conducting the research. The research is backed by the US Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), which develops high-risk, reward research projects for the government, and is intended to build a repository of speech metaphors from American/English Iranian Farsi, Mexican Spanish and Russian speakers. ADAMA could have immediate applications in forensics, intelligence analysis, business intelligence, sociological research and communication studies, researchers stated."

Comment: Illegal? (Score 4, Interesting) 714

by BlameCanada (#39517799) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How Have You Handled Illegal Interview Topics?

The article is pure bunk - none of these questions are illegal. Discrimination based on on answers to these questions is illegal, but not asking them.

As an interviewer, these are questions which should never be asked, because they leave you open to an accusation of discrimination. That doesn't make them illegal.

Comprehensive discussion and advice on the topic: http://www.manager-tools.com/2011/06/answering-illegal-interview-questions-part-1

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed. -- Alexander Pope

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