389295
submission
teslar writes
"The Spiegel tells us (in German), that as a result of Vodafone's court order, T-Mobile is now selling the iPhone unlocked and without a contract at a bargain price of 999 Euros — 600 Euros more than it costs on contract. People who have bought their iPhone on or after the 19th of November can have it be unlocked for free. However, the deal is only temporary until the legal situation is clear — T-Mobile is appealing the decision and is threatening to sue Vodafone for damages."
374069
submission
Vaystrem writes
"On November 2nd 2007 Canada's Intellectual Policy Directorate released a report entitled "The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing on the Purchase of Music: A Study for Industry Canada" From the abstract:
Our review of existing econometric studies suggests that P2P file-sharing tends to decrease music purchasing. However, we find the opposite, namely that P2P file-sharing tends to increase rather than decrease music purchasing. Among Canadians who engage in P2P file-sharing, our results suggest that for every 12 P2P downloaded songs, music purchases increase by 0.44 CDs. That is, downloading the equivalent of approximately one CD increases purchasing by about half of a CD.
The study was paid for by Public Works and Government Services Canada. Details of the contract, methodology and the original data files from the study may be found here."
373977
submission
mytrip writes
"Google faces a federal patent infringement lawsuit by Northeastern University over technology used in its core Web search system, according to legal papers filed last week.
The complaint was filed on November 6 in Marshall, in the Eastern District of Texas — the U.S. court with a history of decisions that are highly favorable to plaintiffs in patent cases — but the case only came to light over the weekend.
The plaintiffs are Boston-based Northeastern University and Jarg, a start-up founded by a Northeastern University professor that is the exclusive licensee of search technology patented in 1997, a year before Google was incorporated.
The case centers on U.S. patent No. 5,694,593, titled "Distributed Computer Database System and Method," which was invented by Kenneth Baclawski, an associate professor in Northeastern's computer science department.
Baclawski is co-founder of Waltham, Mass.-based Jarg, which was incorporated in 1998. He first published his method of searching and retrieving information from large, distributed databases in 1994, according to court documents."Link to Original Source
360805
submission
Techie Coward writes
"Industry Canada has released a study regarding the effect of P2P file-sharing on CD purchases. The study concludes that P2P file-sharing does not have an overall positive or negative effect on CD sales. Additionaly, the study finds that among those who do download, those who download more purchase more CDs, and that the price of CDs has no overall effect on CD sales."
