MissingRainbow - Slashdot User

Feed The Register: Court date for challenge to 'new' patent rules (theregister.com)

From feed by registerfeed on Tuesday November 13, 2007 @12:32PM

UK conflict with Europe is 'absurd'

A date has been set for a hearing in the High Court to determine the legality of a patent office review of the level of protection it offers to software patents in the UK. On November 19, the High Court will hear four small UK companies argue that the patent office's refusal to accept patent claims covering disks and downloads is "absurd" and puts the UK in conflict with European patent law.

Submission + - Wal-Mart's $200 Linux PC Sells Out (ecogeek.org)

Submitted by

hankmt

on Sunday November 11, 2007 @04:49PM

hankmt writes: "About a week ago Wal-Mart began selling a $200 linux machine running on a 1.5 ghz Via C7 processor and 512 megs of RAM. While the specs are useless for vista, it works blazingly fast on Ubuntu with the Enlightenment Window Manager. The machine is now officially sold out of their online warehouses, and the product sales page at WalMart.com is full of glowing reviews from new and old linux users alike."

Submission + - We made a mistake, so what? (timesnow.tv)

Submitted by

MissingRainbow

on Monday November 05, 2007 @12:14PM

MissingRainbow writes: "An HCL employee was arrested and kept under custody for 50 days at Bangalore, India. His crime was to have defamed an historical person named Chhatrapati Shivaji, on Google's Orkut social networking site. Later the police found that they had the wrong person under custory and hence released him. When the police was asked about this their response was "We made a mistake. So what?". The error was that they relied on the information (the IP address) provided by internet service provider (ISP), Airtel. And that turned out to be false! Now who is responsible for this debacle? The ISP, for providing the wrong information or the police for not doing their due research before arresting the person? What if the ISP had some ulterior motive for doing this? Why no action is being taken against the ISP for providing false information?"

Submission + - Mobile Phone as Tracking Device a Reality (hindu.com)

Submitted by

MissingRainbow

on Thursday October 25, 2007 @09:51AM

MissingRainbow writes: "In India, privacy issues are not taken very seriously. Thats why the news, that a big telecommunications company, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), is providing a service named 'Target Subscriber Notification', which can be used to track subscribers, did not surprise me much. This is touted as a value added service and is available for both police and common subscribers. There are two problems with this. One is that the procedure for the police to avail this facility against an individual is not very clear. I think it will be available for the asking. Since the news article, doesn't even bother to mention the word privacy anywhere, you know the kind of importance it is given in India. The other problem is in the family. I foresee lot of trouble between husband and wife, parents and children, and between lovers because of this service."

Submission + - Copyrights Are Not Patents (blogspot.com)

Submitted by

MissingRainbow

on Friday October 12, 2007 @08:39AM

MissingRainbow writes: "A group of people in Kolkata, India constructed a pandal (consider this a temporary building used during festivals) based on the Harry Potter theme. The pandal was constructed for a famous festival called Durga Pooja. The Harry Potter theme was used because of its popularity with the neighborhood children. This was a non-commercial use. This should have made the creators of Harry Potter proud. But sadly it didn't. Instead of considering this as free marketing, they have sued the organizers of the Durga Pooja function. Is this how ardent fans are rewarded?"

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