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Biotech

Submission + - Velociraptor had feathers (physorg.com)

Spy der Mann writes: "A new look at some old bones have shown that velociraptor, the dinosaur made famous in the movie Jurassic Park, had feathers. A paper describing the discovery, made by paleontologists at the American Museum of Natural History and the Field Museum of Natural History, appears in the Sept. 21 issue of the journal Science."
Patents

Submission + - First Ever U.S. GPL Violation Lawsuit Filed (softwarefreedom.org)

Adam Hazzlebank writes: "The Software Freedom Law Center has filed the first ever U.S. copyright infringement lawsuit based on a violation of the GPL on behalf of the developers of BusyBox. The device in question is a manufactured by Monsoon Multimedia who have publicly acknowledged their use of BusyBox, but have so far refused to make the source available, as required by the GPL. This should be an interesting and important test case for the GPL."
The Courts

Submission + - First New Dismissal Motion Against RIAA Complaint

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Several weeks ago it was discovered that a California federal judge, in rejecting an RIAA application for default judgment, had dismissed the RIAA's standard complaint for failure to state a claim, calling it "conclusory" "boilerplate" "speculation" in Interscope v. Rodriguez. In the wake of that decision, a Queens, New York, woman being sued in Brooklyn federal court, Rae J Schwartz, has told the Court that she is making a motion to dismiss the complaint in her case, Elektra v. Schwartz. This is the first post-Interscope challenge to the RIAA's boilerplate, of which we are aware. This is the same case in which the RIAA had sent a letter to the Judge falsely indicating that AOL had "confirmed that defendant owned an internet access account through which copyrighted sound recordings were downloaded and distributed". Ms. Schwartz suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, but the RIAA has pressed the case against her."
Unix

Submission + - Open source developers sue to enforce GPL (vnunet.com)

pete314 writes: "Two developers behind the BusyBox open source project have filed a lawsuit against device maker Monsoon Multimedia, demanding that the firm abides to the General Public License version 2. The case marks the first time that developers are asking courts in the US to enforce the license, although the GPL-violations project has previously successfully enforced the license in Europe."
Power

Submission + - Electric motorcyle inventor crashes at Wired Conf. (tgdaily.com)

not5150 writes: "The inventor of the electric 'KillaCycle" motorcycle was almost killed himself after demonstrating the vehicle to reporters. Bill Dube, a government scientist during the day and bike builder at night, attempted a burnout in front of the Los Angeles Convention Center during the Wired NextFest fair. Fueled by the "most powerful" lithium-ion batteries in the world, the bike accelerated uncontrollably into another car. There's a video interview (thankfully before the crash) and footage of Dube crashing."
Microsoft

Submission + - Standards New Zealand votes against OOXML (standards.org.nz)

LordP writes: Standards New Zealand today cast a 'no' vote on the proposal to adopt the Open XML draft Standard as an international Standard.

From the article — "After considerable discussion and input from key New Zealand stakeholders, a large number of whom opposed publication of the document as an international Standard in it's current form, the Standards Council have concluded that the best vote for New Zealand is 'no'," said Grant Thomas, Chief Operating Officer, Standards New Zealand.

It's not the final word, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

Java

Submission + - CNET 1997: Java is Dead! (java.net)

porkrind writes: "David Herron has a great post on his blog at java.net. David uncovered an old CNET article listing 10 technologies that "don't stand a chance" with Java, of course, being one. It would seem that the death of Java has been foretold multiple times for at least 10 years now. One wonders how long it needs to survive before someone admits, "well, perhaps this Java thing will make it after all.""
Software

Submission + - The green cure to the internet cafe blues (userful.com)

Cathie Walker writes: "Hotels, cafes and other high-traffic areas need a hassle-free way of providing internet access. Kiosks.Userful.com is now giving away the software, supplies & support to set up & run turnkey self-service internet cafes. A pod of 10 environmentally responsible internet stations running off a single PC in use just 90 minutes a day could make $25,000 per year. Userful's revolutionary software, DiscoverStation is quickly becoming the standard for green computing worldwide. DiscoverStation leverages the unused computing power of modern PCs to create an environmentally efficient computing option. Attaching up to 10 monitors, mice and keyboards to a single computer reduces CO2 emissions by up to 15 tons per year per system and reduces electronic waste by up to 80%. Userful recently stated that in the last year their software has saved over 13,250 tons of CO2 emissions, the equivalent of taking 2,300 cars off the road."
Biotech

Submission + - Girl's heart regenerates due to artificial assist (www.cbc.ca) 1

Socguy writes: "A 15-year-old girl has become the first Canadian to have an artificial heart removed after her own heart healed itself.
Doctors at the Stollery Children's hospital implanted the Berlin Heart, a portable mechanical device that keeps blood pumping in an ailing heart, so she could survive until a transplant became available.
But over the next few months, Melissa's overall condition improved dramatically, and her heart muscle regained much of its strength. After 146 days on the Berlin Heart, Melissa underwent surgery to have the device removed.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2007/08/28/ artificial-heart.html"

Microsoft

Submission + - FSF may sue Microsoft over GPLv3 (groklaw.net)

mjasay writes: "As Groklaw reports, the Free Software Foundation has issued a press release decrying Microsoft's attempts to distance itself from its obligations to abide by GPL Version 3. Citing Microsoft's earlier refusal to abide by GPLv3, the Free Software Foundation declared, "Microsoft cannot by any act of anticipatory repudiation divest itself of its obligation to respect others' copyrights." The press release goes on to imply that the Free Software Foundation may sue Microsoft over the issue."
Censorship

Submission + - Beijing Police Launch Virtual Web Patrol (physorg.com)

Spy der Mann writes: "On Tuesday Aug. 28, 2007, the Beijing Public Security Bureau said a "virtual police" will soon begin patrolling the web using animated beat cops that pop up on a user's browser and walk, bike or drive across the screen warning them to stay away from illegal Internet content. The cartoon alerts will appear every half hour on 13 of China's top portals, starting Sept. 1."
Education

Submission + - A Visit from MPAA Senior VP Rich Taylor

tedswiss writes: Fate has dropped a unique opportunity upon my lap: I teach at a moderately small independent school who has as one of its alums Richard Taylor. Mr. Taylor is both speaking at our start-of-year festivities and being honored with this year's "Distinguished Alum Award." Having followed and been disgusted by the MPAA's corporate practices regarding DRM and government lobbying in the past (Anyone remember DeCSS?), I would love to make his visit help to truly educate our student body, not just indoctrinate them. The school administration is sympathetic to my plight, but I want to present them with more than just my complaints. To the /. community: How would you best make use of this opportunity if you found yourself in my shoes?
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - DMCA means you cannot delete files on your own PC (wired.com)

DragonHawk writes: "According to Wired, John Stottlemire found a way to print duplicate coupons from Coupons.com by deleting some files and registry entires on his PC. Now he's being sued for a DMCA violation. He says, "All I did was erase files or registry keys." Says a lawyer: "It may cover this. I think it does give companies a lot of leverage and a lot of power." So now the copyright cartels are saying that not only can we not copy things on our computers, but we cannot delete things on our computers. Time to buy stock in Seagate."

MIT Startup Unveils New 64-Core CPU 213

single-threaded writes "Tilera, a startup out of MIT, has announced that it is shipping a 64-core CPU. Called the TILE64, the CPU is fabbed on a 90nm process and is clocked at anywhere from 600MHz to 900MHz. 'What will make or break Tilera is not how many peak theoretical operations per second it's capable of (Tilera claims 192 billion 32-bit ops/sec), nor how energy-efficient its mesh network is, but how easy it is for programmers to extract performance from the device. That's the critical piece of TILE64's launch story that's missing right now, and it's what I'll keep an eye out for as I watch this product make its way in the market. Though there are any number of questions about this product that remain to be answered, one thing is for certain: TILE64 has indeed brought us into the era of 64 general-purpose, mesh-networked processor cores on a single chip, and that's a major milestone.'"

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