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+ - Why Silicon Valley will hate California's 'right to know' bill->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "California, home to many Silicon Valley firms like Facebook, Twitter and Google, has introduced a bill that goes above and beyond EU rights for citizens to request data held on them by companies. Trouble is, Silicon Valley will react — likely with full force — and attempt to squash any hopes of this bill being passed."
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Comment: Don't assume Apple and Samsung equally Guilty (Score 1) 1

by trevmar (#40852077) Attached to: Samsung responds to Appes FUD over public releases.

As Apple said in its opening to the jury - something like "Samsung doesn't deserve to have its patent claims heard because it didn't sue us before we sued them." So who was the aggressor, the instigator? In Apples own words it was Apple. There are real patents to be weighed here, both Samsung and Apple have valid claims. But Apple can't claim the rectangle shape with rounded corners. I have a Compaq IPAQ sitting here in front of me, predating Apple by years. And an Apple Newton. There is no way I, as a designer, would ever have considered in 2007 that Apple would dare to patent such a shape. Innovation is being stifled here. I have the Newton, but I will never buy another Apple product. Does that make me biased. Well, that can be argued, as well :)

Space

+ - US Launches Largest Satellite in the World

Submitted by
Ponca City, We Love You
Ponca City, We Love You writes "Space.com reports that over the weekend a giant booster – a Delta 4 Heavy rocket — carrying a secret new spy satellite for the US National Reconnaissance Office roared into space to deliver what one reconnaissance official has touted as "the largest satellite in the world" into orbit. The Delta 4 Heavy rocket is the biggest unmanned rocket currently in service and has 2 million pounds of thrust, capable of launching payloads of up to 24 tons to low-Earth orbit and 11 tons toward the geosynchronous orbits used by communications satellites. The mammoth vehicle is created by taking three Common Booster Cores — the liquid hydrogen-fueled motor that forms a Delta 4-Medium's first stage — and strapping them together to form a triple-barrel rocket, and then adding an upper stage. The exact purpose of the new spy satellite NROL-32 is secret but is widely believed to be an essential eavesdropping spacecraft that requires the powerful lift provided by the Delta 4-Heavy to reach its listening post. "I believe the payload is the fifth in the series of what we call Mentor spacecraft, a.k.a. Advanced Orion, which gather signals intelligence from inclined geosynchronous orbits," says Ted Molczan, a respected sky-watcher who keeps tabs on orbiting spacecraft. Earlier models of the series included an unfurling dish structure about 255 feet in diameter with a total spacecraft mass of about 5,953.5 pounds costing about $750 million and designed to monitor specific points or objects of interest such as ballistic missile flight test telemetry."
Open Source

Open Source OCR That Makes Searchable PDFs 133

Posted by timothy
from the word-of-advice dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In my job all of our multifunction copiers scan to PDF but many of our users want and expect those PDFs to be text searchable. I looked around for software that would create text searchable pdfs but most are very expensive and I couldn't find any that were open source (free). I did find some open source packages like CuneiForm and Exactimage that could in theory do the job, but they were hard to install and difficult to set up and use over a network. Then I stumbled upon WatchOCR. This is a Live CD distro that can easily create a server on your network that provides an OCR service using watched folders. Now all my scanners scan to a watched folder, WatchOCR picks up those files and OCRs them, and then spits them out into another folder. It uses CuneiForm and ExactImage but it is all configured and ready to deploy. It can even be remotely managed via the Web interface. Hope this proves helpful to someone else who has this same situation."
Patents

Supreme Court Throws Out Bilski Patent 232

Posted by CmdrTaco
from the well-isn't-that-special dept.
ciaran_o_riordan writes "The US Supreme Court has finally decided the Bilski case (PDF). We've known that Bilski's patent would get thrown out; that was clear from the open mockery from the judges during last November's hearing. The big question is, since rejecting a particular patent requires providing a general test and explaining why this patent fails that test, how broad will their test be? Will it try to kill the plague of software patents? And is their test designed well enough to stand up to the army of patent lawyers who'll be making a science (and a career) of minimizing and circumventing it? The judges have created a new test, so this will take some reading before any degree of victory can be declared. The important part is pages 5-16 of the PDF, which is the majority opinion. The End Software Patents campaign is already analyzing the decision, and collecting other analyses. Some background is available at Late-comers guide: What is Bilski anyway?" More analysis of the decision is available at Patently-O.
Medicine

What US Health Care Needs 584

Posted by kdawson
from the velluvial-matrix dept.
Medical doctor and writer Atul Gawande gave the commencement address recently at Stanford's School of Medicine. In it he lays out very precisely and in a nonpartisan way what is wrong with the institution of medical care in the US — why it is both so expensive and so ineffective at delivering quality care uniformly across the board. "Half a century ago, medicine was neither costly nor effective. Since then, however, science has... enumerated and identified... more than 13,600 diagnoses — 13,600 different ways our bodies can fail. And for each one we've discovered beneficial remedies... But those remedies now include more than six thousand drugs and four thousand medical and surgical procedures. Our job in medicine is to make sure that all of this capability is deployed, town by town, in the right way at the right time, without harm or waste of resources, for every person alive. And we're struggling. There is no industry in the world with 13,600 different service lines to deliver. ... And then there is the frightening federal debt we will face. By 2025, we will owe more money than our economy produces. One side says war spending is the problem, the other says it's the economic bailout plan. But take both away and you've made almost no difference. Our deficit problem — far and away — is the soaring and seemingly unstoppable cost of health care. ... Like politics, all medicine is local. Medicine requires the successful function of systems — of people and of technologies. Among our most profound difficulties is making them work together. If I want to give my patients the best care possible, not only must I do a good job, but a whole collection of diverse components must somehow mesh effectively. ... This will take science. It will take art. It will take innovation. It will take ambition. And it will take humility. But the fantastic thing is: This is what you get to do."
Australia

Operation Titstorm Hits the Streets 458

Posted by timothy
from the koala-masks dept.
schliz writes "Hacker group 'Anonymous' is organising international, real-life protests of the Australian mandatory internet filter this coming Saturday. Protests will take place in major Australian cities as well as at Australian embassies around the world. The protests are said to be the second stage of 'Operation Titstorm,' which unleashed a prolonged DDoS attack on Australian government websites last week. Organisers of the so-called Project Freeweb said: 'If passed, this legislation will set a disturbing precedent at an international level. The public, not the Government, should have the right to decide what is deemed appropriate for you or your family to be exposed to.'"
Government

+ - U.S. rules may raise cost of buying gadgets online->

Submitted by ericatcw
ericatcw writes "Buying your next laptop or smartphone online could suddenly get a lot more expensive if a little-known U.S. Department of Transportation proposal to tighten rules around the shipment of small, Lithium-Ion battery-powered devices by air goes through, says an industry group opposing the move. The changes, designed primarily to reduce the risk from Lithium-Ion batteries, would also forbid air travelers from carrying spare alkaline or NiMH batteries in their checked-in luggage, according to the head of the Portable Rechargeable Battery Association. The proposal is under review until March 12. It can be viewed and commented upon by members of the public here."
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Idle

Canadian Blood Services Promotes Pseudoscience 219

Posted by samzenpus
from the type-A-negative-personality dept.
trianglecat writes "The not-for-profit agency Canadian Blood Services has a section of their website based on the Japanese cultural belief of ketsueki-gata, which claims that a person's blood group determines or predicts their personality type. Disappointing for a self-proclaimed 'science-based' organization. The Ottawa Skeptics, based in the nation's capital, appear to be taking some action."

Comment: Re:What's the point? (Score 1) 289

by trevmar (#29093935) Attached to: TomTom Releases iPhone Navigation App

I use mGmaps in my Blackberry. Unlike Google Maps, you can download the maps in advance and work in an offline (airplane) mode. A world map at decent resolution takes about 6 gigs of SD card space. But this will just make sure you know where you are - I use TomTom to get me where I want to go. Two different tasks :)
 

Security

+ - SPAM: Linux machines used to attack DMZ

Submitted by viralMeme
viralMeme writes ""Criminal hackers continue to penetrate many more company networks than most administrators care to admit, according to two security experts who offered a list of the most effective exploits used to gain entry"

"Topping the list is an attack dubbed super-flexible pivoting. It abuses Linux machines connected to a network's DMZ, or demilitarized zone, to bypass corporate firewalls and access sensitive resources on an internal network. The technique has already been used to steal vast amounts of data, including "millions of credit cards," said Ed Skoudis, a senior security consultant for InGuardians, a security company that frequently responds to major network breaches"

[spam URL stripped]"
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The Courts

+ - The Pirate Bay Aftermath Circus in Swedish Press

Submitted by MaulerOfEmotards
MaulerOfEmotards writes "Reading the Swedish news reports, the turmoil surrounding the aftermath of The Pirate Bay trial continues.

Part of the news are occupied with Tomas Norström, the presiding judge of The Pirate Bay trial. Mr. Nordström is suspected of bias after reports of affiliation with copyright protection organisations, for which he has been charged reported to the appeals court, is rapidly gaining a certain notoriety. The circus around him is currently focused on three points. First, his personal affiliation with at least four copyright protection organisations, a state the potential bias of which he himself fails to see and refuse to admit. Secondly, Swedish trials use a system of several lay assessors to supervise the presiding judge, one of which, a member of an artists' interest organisation, which is far fewer than Mr. Norström himself, was by Mr. Norström made to resign from the trial for potential bias, and his failing to see the obvious contradiction in this casts doubts on his suitability and competence. Thirdly, according to professor of judicial sociology Håkan Hydén the judge has inappropriately "duped and influenced the lay assessors" during the trial: "a judge that has decided that 'this is something we can't allow' has little problem finding legal arguments that are difficult for assisting lay assessors to counter".

The apparent grave legal problems if the trial itself is also of medial interest. Professor Hydén continues with enumerating "at least three strange things" with "a strange trial": Firstly that someone can be sentenced for being accessory to a crime for which there is no main culprit: "this assumes someone else having committed the crime, and no such individual exists here ... the system cannot charge the real culprits or it would collapse in its entirety". It is unprecedented in Swedish judicial history to sentence only an accessory. Secondly, that the accessories should pay the fine for a crime committed by the main culprits "which causes the law to contradict itself". And thirdly that accessories cannot be sentenced to harsher than the main culprit, which means that every downloader must be sentenced to a year's confinement. In closing Me. Hydén sums up by saying that to allow this kind of judgement the Swedish Parliament must first pass a bill making this kind of services illegal, which hasn't been done."

More are taken in by hope than by cunning. -- Vauvenargues

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