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+ - Canada courts, patent office warns against trying to patent mathematics->

Submitted by davecb
davecb writes "The Canadian Intellectial Property Office (CIPO) warns patent examiners that ..."for example, what appears on its face to be a claim for an “art” or a “process” may, on a proper construction, be a claim for a mathematical formula and therefore not patentable subject matter.” (Courtesy of Paula Bremner at Slaw)"
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+ - Abercrombie & Fitch Gets Trolled by YouTube Campaign to Clothe the Homeless->

Submitted by fangmcgee
fangmcgee writes "After remarks emerged that Abercrombie & Fitch would rather destroy its clothes than see them on poor people, Greg Karber decided to take action. The L.A. writer-filmmaker has started a campaign to distribute the store’s garments to the homeless. In a YouTube video released on Monday, Karber is seen scouring the “douchebag section” of his local Goodwill for Abercrombie-branded merchandise. He then heads to Skid Row in East Los Angeles, home to one of the largest populations of homeless people in the United States, to hand them out."
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+ - Federal Judge Dismisses Movie Piracy Complaint->

Submitted by cluedweasel
cluedweasel writes "A Federal judge in Medford, OR has dismissed a piracy case lodged against 34 Oregonians. Judge Ann Aiken ruled that Voltage Pictures LLC unfairly lumped the defendants into what she called a "reverse class action suit" to save on legal expenses and possibly to intimidate them into paying thousands of dollars for viewing a movie that could be bought or rented for less than $10."
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+ - Ask Slashdot: What is the best hard-copy backup of my digital identity? 1

Submitted by Megaport
Megaport writes "'Digital identity' can mean whatever set of unique digital artifacts happen to be most precious to you, or the keys to those things. In my case, it probably comes down to all my ssh & gpg keys and password safes. What is the best way to get a printout or other physical representation of that data in a medium that is inexpensive and inconspicuous?

My current idea is to pass-phrase encrypt and ASCII armor all my keys and safes, then sign the package using each of the keys it contains. I've collected these through 20 years of working in the industry with a lot of people who would be easily able to recognize and verify them from among their own crypto-collection, so my feeling is that this could also be useful for establishing myself in a digital environment through ad-hoc webs of trust.

Put the whole thing onto a QR code, print it out cards, stickers and t-shirts which I take everywhere and also leave in my trail behind me. My digital identity would be secure of everything this side of a rubber hose for the pass-phrase. Is this a reasonable security trade-off?

Please slashdot, tell me how paranoid I need to be. Anyway, I can't think of anyone better to ask whose name doesn't start with 'Bruce'."

+ - Police Confiscate Cell Phones Used to Film Fatal Beating->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "The LA Times and other sources are reporting that police in Bakersfield CA detained witnesses and confiscated their cellphones after an incident where a David Sal Silva, aged 33 and father of 4 died after apparently being beaten with batons by as many as 9 Kern County police officers.

While a search warrant was executed, police did not allow phone owners to make copies of the phone contents.

There is considerable concern that the Bakersfield Police are too closely associated with the Kern County department to be trustworthy in this case."
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+ - Hand-held "Sound Camera" Shows You the Source of Noises->

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes "If you work with machinery, engines or appliances of any type, then you’ve likely experienced the frustration of hearing a troublesome noise coming from somewhere, but not being able to pinpoint where. If only you could just grab a camera, and take a picture that showed you the noise’s location. Well, soon you should be able to do so, as that’s just what the SeeSV-S205 sound camera does."
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+ - Tax Authorities launch largest TAX Investigations in history->

Submitted by lxrocks
lxrocks writes "Tax authorities in the U.S., Britain, and Australia today announced they are working with a gigantic cache of leaked data that may be the beginnings of one of the largest tax investigations in history.

The secret records are believed to include those obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists that lay bare the individuals behind covert companies and private trusts in the British Virgin Islands, the Cook Islands, Singapore and other offshore hideaways."
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+ - Demonoid Resurrection Dismissed As Malware Was Legitimate ->

Submitted by wo1verin3
wo1verin3 writes "Previously reported on Slashdot was a story about a malware attempt masquerading itself as a Demonoid resurrection. It turns out this really was Demonoid making a comeback. With the site now back online with a new host, TorrentFreak caught up with its admins who tell us they have no malicious intent and simply want to bring a community back to together. While there is still uncertainty, one thing is absolutely clear – they do have the old Demonoid database."
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Comment: Re:Google will block it (Score 1) 381

by snakeplissken (#43692683) Attached to: Microsoft YouTube App Strips Ads; Adds Download

Legally, their TOS is a masterpiece.

indeed it is, but you are not bound by it at all, you can completely ignore it if you want but then you are left with the consequences of copyright law if you do. obey copyright law and anything consistent with that is allowed. want to do something otherwise not allowed under copyright law... follow the gpl. that's the difference to TOSs, no-one says you have to agree to anything use the software, but if you do want to go beyond what the law allows by default then the conditions are already spelled out for you, break those and those conditions won't be laughed out of court.

snake

+ - Are software and pattents about to seperate?

Submitted by laitcg
laitcg writes "According to PJ at Groklaw: CLS Bank v. Alice Corp. has been decided [PDF] by the the Federal Circuit en banc. And Patently O says the court "finds many software patents ineligible"!

        As described more fully below, we would affirm the district court’s judgment in its entirety and hold that the method, computer-readable medium, and corresponding system claims before us recite patent-ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. 101.1

        _____
        1 While Chief Judge Rader is correct to note that no single opinion issued today commands a majority, seven of the ten members, a majority, of this en banc court have agreed that the method and computer-readable medium claims before us fail to recite patent-eligible subject matter. In addition, eight judges, a majority, have concluded that the particular method, medium, and system claims at issue in this case should rise or fall together in the 101 analysis."

+ - Is This Why We're Microsoft Haters and Linux Lovers?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "A recent study by the USC Marshall School of Business presents insights into brand aversion, distilling the brand equation into three E's. Essentially, we like things that are enticing, enabling, and enriching, and we hate what's opposite. Says one coauthor of the study, 'There are many cases these days where people are very adverse to certain brands. This is a serious issue... Why people become so antagonistic toward a brand is based on these three reasons, when it displeases them aesthetically or doesn't help them solve their daily problems or is contrary to their personal beliefs.'"

+ - Realtime GPU Audio->

Submitted by CowboyRobot
CowboyRobot writes "Two researchers at San Francisco State University has successfully implemented hardware acceleration for realtime audio using graphics processing units (GPUs). "Suppose you are simulating a metallic plate to generate gong or cymbal-like sounds. By changing the surface area for the same object, you can generate sound corresponding to cymbals or gongs of different sizes. Using the same model, you may also vary the way in which you excite the metallic plate--to generate sounds that result from hitting the plate with a soft mallet, a hard drumstick, or from bowing. By changing these parameters, you may even simulate nonexistent materials or physically impossible geometries or excitation methods. There are various approaches to physical modeling sound synthesis. One such approach, studied extensively by Stefan Bilbao, uses the finite difference approximation to simulate the vibrations of plates and membranes. The finite difference simulation produces realistic and dynamic sounds (examples can be found at http://unixlab.sfsu.edu/~whsu/FDGPU). Realtime finite difference-based simulations of large models are typically too computationally-intensive to run on CPUs. In our work, we have implemented finite difference simulations in realtime on GPUs.""
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+ - Ask Slashdot: What is the Best Email Encryption Gateway for a Small Business?

Submitted by Attila Dimedici
Attila Dimedici writes "I am in the process of implementing a Email Encryption Gateway for my company. I checked with my various contacts in the industry and came away with Voltage as the best solution. However, as I have been working with them to implement a solution, I have been sadly disappointed by their lack of professionalism. Every time I think I am one question away from being ready to pull the trigger, I discover something that my contact with them had not mentioned before that has to be ironed out by the various stakeholders on my end. So, my question for Slashdot Users is this, what is your experience with implementing an Email Encryption Gateway for your company and who what solution would you recommend?"

Never invest your money in anything that eats or needs repainting. -- Billy Rose

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