You're right. I'd imagine the fault is not with the original paper, it's in the interpretation of this paper by the popular press. We see this again and again.

Shitting in a hole is very sanitary, as long as the hole is not near any drinking water. The poo breaks down pretty readily on its own, and doesn't need any help.

It's a real shame that the patent system has been able to be manipulated so effectively, to siphon hard-earned money from real companies, and real inventors, into the pockets of these parasites. They're nothing but a drain on everyone. Lemelson's legacy lives on!

I'm glad this is getting some attention, though.

These kind of quality assessments are very subjective. Plenty of people consider the NYT to be of dubious journalistic quality. For those who consider it worth it, they can pay. But I doubt many will.

I agree, I probably wouldn't bother, except for the rare unique article of interest (which is free anyhow). Just saying that a bugmenot equivalent will probably take care of this for anyone reasonably savvy.

There are plenty of other sources of free (decent) content available on the internet, at least of similar quality. Obviously, we'll see what the market thinks of all this.

Of course, I'm sure it will be trivial to game the website anyhow.

The CEA can institute whatever rules it wants on its own show property, but it has no business or right to interfere with anything (ahem) going on in local Las Vegas hotel rooms.

Similarly, unless the hotel informed them of some restriction, and as long as they abided by all of their usual rules, they have no basis for throwing them out, at all. I hope these companies fight this. At the very least, there's remedy in small-claims action. And obviously they should dispute any credit card charges from the hotel.

They're probably desperate from the declining numbers, and revenue, and are in financial trouble.

Wrong.

Read the summary:

"In fact, the researchers mention that the energy harvesting head band works so well that it can get uncomfortably cold."

It "gets" cold; it doesn't just start that way. If it's cold to start with, your body will warm it very quickly, even with a good heatsink. Then it's no longer cold. Just like the science-museum materials you mention.

They clearly imply that they're effectively drawing heat away, which is just wrong.

Then they go on to suggest a hat/insulation to reduce the effect? Well, that brings the whole apparatus higher in temperature, reducing the differential, and reducing the effect.

This thing is worthless.

Causing any part of the system to cool below ambient requires the net consumption of energy.

Sure, you can harvest a bit of energy from a temperature differential, but you will NOT create "cold". Quite the opposite. These attempts of microenergy harvesting from body heat have been around for decades, and are nothing new.

These guys are either liars, or don't know what the hell they are doing.

First, having a patent means basically nothing. It doesn't mean it works, that it's practical, or that it will be used by anyone.

Second, this type of patent is going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to enforce. Prior art aside, how many data centers do you know that are open to public inspection? They can't just go buy a widget to compare them.

Seems like little more than a trophy (framed patent) for someone's office wall.

Actually, most lawyers, if they knew it was urgent, would happily take the call, and bill them at their usual hourly rate.

This is the sixth spam message this user has posted, will SLASHDOT please BAN this guy already? Come on.

Time to get into the mirror business! It's a lot easier to deflect protons than bullets, I'll tell you that.

I always considered the people who religiously adhere to .45 over 9mm, despite its negligible, if any, benefit, to really be compensating for a lack of genitalular fortitude.

So far you win for lowest UID, grandpa!