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Submission + - Good news about Deepwater Horizon: oysters didn't eat oil (acs.org)
That's the conclusion of a study by researchers in Alabama who were already studying the region's oysters before the spill happened — giving them before, during, and after samples to test. Using isotopic ratios, the researchers found little evidence of oil in the oyster's flesh or shells.
Submission + - IBM kills Lotus brand, readies beta of Notes/Domino Social Edition (networkworld.com)
Submission + - Crooks steal $1.5M in iPads from JFK (nypost.com)
Submission + - RIAA Data Shows P2P Users Spend Nearly 50% More on Music Than Non-P2P Users (michaelgeist.ca) 1
Submission + - NASA to encrypt all of its laptops (bbc.co.uk)
Submission + - With Pot Legal, Police Worry About Traffic Safety 13
Submission + - Amazon Payment Adds "No Class Action" Language to Terms Of Service
1.3 Disputes. Any dispute or claim relating in any way to your visit to the Site or Seller Central or to products or services sold or distributed by us or through the Site or Seller Central (including without limitation the Service) will be resolved by binding arbitration, rather than in court, except that you may assert claims in small claims court if your claims qualify. The Federal Arbitration Act and federal arbitration law apply to this agreement....
This is becoming more and more common, and while the end user normally doesn't make out well in a class-action suit, large settlements do provide a punishment and deterrent to corporations that abuse their power. The question becomes, what do we do to fix this so that consumers are truly protected?
Submission + - Why Microsoft Says the Patent System Is Peachy Keen (wired.com)
But as he puts it, Microsoft will also “pro-actively” drive licensing deals. “We will go out and look for areas where we see a lot people who are probably using our technology in one form or another,” he says, “and we kinda ask ourselves whether it has risen to a level that we care about and we want to have some conversations.” Basically, this involves a Microsoft lawyer like Kaefer trying to convince lawyers at other companies that their technology infringes on Microsoft patents — and that they should pay to license those patents. According to Kaefer, these discussions can spans months — or even years."
Submission + - In UK, Twitter, Facebook rants land some in jail (chron.com)
Submission + - Ask Slashdot: High-tech ways to manage your own library at home? 1
This is why I am looking for a modern solution to implement some professional-yet-still-home-sized library management. Ideally, this should include some cool features like RFID tags or NFC for keeping track of the books, finding and checking them out quickly, if I decide to lent one.
One problem seems to be the short lifetime of RFID tags (only 5-10 years). Given that many books will probably only be read or checked out once or twice in this period at best, the administrative effort seems very large.
I have also been largely unsuccessful in finding tags or solutions that go beyond the cheap 5 to 20 item "starter kits", yet still remain affordable and below the industrial scale.
Also, what would be suitable and affordable readers/writers for the tags in this context?
Finally, as many of the books are old folios or fairly precious first editions, everything must be non-destructive and should be removable without damage to the books if need be.
(Note: Scanning ISBN's with a hand-held barcode scanner is not an option, as many books are old (pre-ISBN) or special editions).
Software-wise, I would like to have a nice and modern-looking, easy-to-use software that can interface with the hardware side as described above. I do not necessarily need multi-user or networking capabilities at this point.
I hope the CSI (Combined Slashdot Intelligence) has some helpful ideas and pointers for me on this!
Submission + - Kinected Browser - Kinect On The Web (i-programmer.info)
Submission + - A Free Internet, If You Can Keep It (techcrunch.com)
Submission + - Google engineers open source book scanner design (theverge.com)
Built using a scanner, a vacuum cleaner and various other components, the Linear Book Scanner was developed by engineers during the "20 percent time" that Google allocates for personal projects.
The license is highly permissive, thus it's possible the design and building costs can be improved. Any takers?
Submission + - The First Amendment and Software Speech (stanfordlawreview.org)
Submission + - Teaching robots new tricks without programming (gizmag.com) 1
Submission + - Unhackable drone research to go open source (scmagazine.com.au) 3
The DARPA research will take four years, cost $18 million and promises to also help secure critical systems such as aircraft, vehicles and medical devices and make their code more stable.