Ah, I see your point now. I'm hoping to read about the actual patent itself, since it's conspicuously missing from the news. I'll just wait and see. No hard feelings. :)

I always thought that there was a difference between patent trolls and actual innovators; it depends on whether they put any effort into creating stuff. Apple has patents on a few innovations of their own, and patents on really obvious stuff that shouldn't have been granted a patent in the first place. A university (especially a public one like NCKU) is not as profit-driven as corporations (or so I believe). A patent troll exists solely by holding patents on stuff they did not invent themselves. By this metric, then, I believe neither are patent trolls. (Disclaimer: I'm a student at NCKU, which could be skewing my judgment.)

Either they had really short hindsight, or they knew all along. Either way, these guys are asses.

Thanks very much for helping to clarify this point! It still saddens me that there are still Slashdotters who confuse Taiwan with China. (Disclaimer: I'm a student at the university.)

How, pray tell, is a university a patent troll?

For the record, Foxconn isn't Chinese, its Taiwanese.

A shame that Taiwan is specifically listed as a country where the service isn't legally binding (since we're not party to the Convention of New York). Could have been useful.

Don't get me wrong: I'm very impressed with Tesla's genius and quiet personality. But as a MythBusters episode pointed out (in which they tested Tesla's alleged earthquake machine), he was in trouble financially in his later years, and made all sorts of wild claims to try and win over investors - like the antiaircraft death ray. That, and several other crazy-sounding inventions made me cast some doubt over how many of his discoveries and inventions were actually real. Somehow, if all our modern technology is unable to even replicate the stuff he (allegedly) did (like when he powered a load of lightbulbs in the middle of the desert), something tells me that it's suspect. I may be wrong, of course, in which case I would respect Tesla even more than I do now. Oh, and my criteria is total number of built inventions, devices, and discoveries.

According to TFA It's a bacteriophage, meaning it only infects bacteria. Using viruses for nanotechnology isn't really new; a type of gold-coated bacteriophage nanowire was designed by an MIT team a few years back.

Then I'd really want to see one inspired by ':'...antigravity isn't easy :)

Isn't religion in essence a belief in something that relies on irrationality to exist, at least in people's minds? If that's so, than it would seem to be tautological that "analytic thinking can decrease religious belief."

Well, technically there is, but since it doesn't repair errors, it's not much good.