zero_offset - Slashdot User

eBay May Lose 'Buy it Now' Button in Patent Case 177

Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday June 15, 2007 @12:34AM from the ain't-it-obvious-yet dept.

Spamicles writes "A judge has delayed his ruling on the eBay patent infringement case. eBay has been involved in a legal dispute over the use of its popular "Buy it Now" button, which allows consumers to skip the bidding and purchase items on eBay directly. The patent suit was filed six years ago by MercExchange L.L.C. In May of 2003, a jury ruled in MercExchange's favor finding that eBay did in fact infringe on the patent, but in 2005 the US Supreme Court ruled that MercExchange was not automatically entitled to a court order blocking the offending service, essentially handing a victory down to patent reform advocates. However, the ruling by the Supreme Court does not affect the final judgment of the court."

Judge Orders TorrentSpy to Turn Over RAM 726

Posted by Zonk on Thursday June 14, 2007 @02:33PM from the i-do-not-think-that-word-means-what-you-think-it-means dept.

virgil_disgr4ce writes "In an impressive example of the gap of understanding between legal officials and technology, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Chooljian 'found that a computer server's RAM, or random-access memory, is a tangible document that can be stored and must be turned over in a lawsuit.' ZDNet, among others, reports on the ruling and its potential for invasion of privacy."

Submission + - IBM sued for firing Internet addict

Submitted by globring on Sunday February 18, 2007 @02:41PM

globring writes: A man who was fired by IBM for visiting an adult chat room at work is suing the company for $5 million, claiming he is an Internet addict who deserves treatment and sympathy rather than dismissal. If it goes to trial, the case could affect how employers regulate Internet use that is not work-related, or how Internet overuse is categorized medically.

Cisco Extends Negotiations on iPhone 74

Posted by Zonk on Sunday February 18, 2007 @02:34PM from the just-a-little-bit-longer dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Apple and Cisco have just a short while longer to discuss the use of the iPhone name for Apple's new product. Cisco has extended the deadline for a resolution out to February 21st. The two companies are seeking a peaceful resolution to their problems, and the deadline was extended to 'reach an agreement on trademark rights and interoperability.' Early this month, Cisco put their lawsuit on hold to start these negotiations - it's easy to understand why they wouldn't want to scrap a whole month's worth of discussion over a few final details."

Submission + - Fastest CMS

Submitted by Mike on Sunday February 18, 2007 @02:10PM

Mike writes: http://www.silverstripe.com/home/

Submission + - Take out asteroid soon, UN urged

Submitted by stevedmc on Sunday February 18, 2007 @10:22AM

stevedmc writes: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21247126-2,00 .html

THE United Nations has been urged to launch a space mission designed to take out an asteroid threatening to smash into the Earth in 2036.

In scenes straight out of Hollywood action movie Armageddon, a group of astronauts, engineers and scientists say they are monitoring an asteroid named Apophis, which has a one in 45,000 chance of striking Earth on April 13, 2036.

A recent congressional mandate for NASA to upgrade its tracking of near-Earth asteroids is expected to uncover a host of threatening space rocks in the near future, former astronaut Rusty Schweickart said.

"It's not just Apophis we're looking at. Every country is at risk. We need a set of general principles to deal with this issue," Mr Schweickart, a member of the Apollo 9 crew that orbited the moon in March 1969, told an American Association for the Advancement of Science conference.

Mr Schweickart plans to present an update this week to the UN Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space on plans to develop a blueprint for a global response to an asteroid threat.

The Association of Space Explorers, a group of former astronauts and cosmonauts, intends to host a series of high-level workshops this year to flesh out the plan and will make a formal proposal to the UN in 2009, he said.

Submission + - Einstein's twin paradox resolved

Submitted by

slashthedot

on Sunday February 18, 2007 @08:59AM

slashthedot writes: "An Indian American scientist Subhash Kak from Louisiana State University has resolved the 100+ years old Einstein's twin paradox. "The fact that time slows down on moving objects has been documented and verified over the years through repeated experimentation. But, in the previous scenario, the paradox is that the earthbound twin is the one who would be considered to be in motion — in relation to the sibling — and therefore should be the one aging more slowly. Einstein and other scientists have attempted to resolve this problem before, but none of the formulas they presented proved satisfactory. Kak's findings were published online in the International Journal of Theoretical Science, and will appear in the upcoming print version of the publication."
"The implications of this resolution will be widespread, generally enhancing the scientific community's comprehension of relativity. It may eventually even have some impact on quantum communications and computers, potentially making it possible to design more efficient and reliable communication systems for space applications."
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-02/lsu -lpr021407.php"

Tech Toys Dominate Toy Fair 2007 48

Posted by Zonk on Sunday February 18, 2007 @04:40AM from the take-me-to-your-elmo dept.

Edis Krad writes "An CNN Money article previews the Hot Toys for 2007 from this past week's Toy Fair. The article is a great place to start looking through the hundreds of new products that were on display at the annual industry event. Among those featured in the article, I was particularly impressed with the Video Journal (blogging for kids?), the virtual bicycle (apparently, riding a real bicycle isn't cool enough anymore), and last but not least, the robotic parrot, that oddly reminds me of the replicant owl in Blade Runner. For more details on tech toys at the event, IEEE Spectrum has a rundown on the nerdier toys available. Artificial snow and a pre-assembled Mentos/Coke kit were two of that journalist's favorites. For different perspectives Forbes has a look at the toy business as it stands since last week, and Wired's Luddite column crabs that kids have too many techie toys nowadays. Dagnabit."

MPAA Violates Another Software License 297

Posted by Zonk on Sunday February 18, 2007 @02:46AM from the that's-a-little-cold dept.

Patrick Robib, a blogger who wrote his own blogging engine called Forest Blog recently noticed that none other than the MPAA was using his work, and had completely violated his linkware license by removing all links back to the Forest Blog site, not crediting him in any way. The MPAA blog was using the Forest Blog software, but had completely stripped off his name, and links back to his site. He only found about it accidentally when he happened to visit the MPAA site.

Google Releases Paper on Disk Reliability 267

Posted by Zonk on Sunday February 18, 2007 @12:18AM from the fun-saturday-night-reading dept.

oski4410 writes "The Google engineers just published a paper on Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population. Based on a study of 100,000 disk drives over 5 years they find some interesting stuff. To quote from the abstract: 'Our analysis identifies several parameters from the drive's self monitoring facility (SMART) that correlate highly with failures. Despite this high correlation, we conclude that models based on SMART parameters alone are unlikely to be useful for predicting individual drive failures. Surprisingly, we found that temperature and activity levels were much less correlated with drive failures than previously reported.'"

Submission + - Sony claims fictional award for SixAxis

Submitted by NexusTw1n on Wednesday January 10, 2007 @09:25AM

NexusTw1n writes: On Monday, Sony claimed their revolutionary SixAxis controller had been honoured with an Emmy , leaving many wondering why the Wiimote had been ignored.

Today, that press release has been clarified , with a statement making it clear the award was actually for the PS2 Dual Shock controller, rather than the new PS3 model.

"I would like to confirm that Sony did not win for their PS3 controller, they won for their Dual Shock Analog controller," the NATAS representative concluded. Somewhat at odds, then, with Monday's press release: "Sony Computer Entertainment America Wins Emmy Award for PLAYSTATION 3 SIXAXIS Wireless Controller," where SCEA president and CEO Jack Tretton attributed his company's fictional success to "overwhelming consumer demand and critical acclaim".

Submission + - Indian Rocket puts 4 satellites in Polar Orbit

Submitted by

TheCybernator

on Wednesday January 10, 2007 @08:07AM

TheCybernator writes: "Satellites in polar orbit after successful Indian launch BY STEPHEN CLARK SPACEFLIGHT NOW Posted: January 10, 2007 An Indian rocket successfully orbited a cache of four satellites Wednesday in the first space launch of the year. Liftoff of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle was at 0353 GMT (10:53 p.m. EST Tuesday) from the Satish Dhawan Space Center on India's east coast. The four-stage rocket and its payloads arrived in orbit about 16 minutes after launch, and deployment of the satellites was completed about four minutes later. The booster was shooting for a Sun-synchronous orbit about 395 miles high, according to the Indian Space Research Organization. The 145-foot-tall rocket was the first PSLV to use a dual payload adapter to launch two primary payloads on the same mission. The Cartosat 2 Earth observation satellite rode atop the apparatus, while a recoverable capsule was housed below. http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0701/10pslv/"

Submission + - Charles Simonyi's intentional programming

Submitted by

prostoalex

on Wednesday January 10, 2007 @02:45AM

prostoalex writes: "MIT Technology Review describes how Charles Simonyi and Intentional Software will change the programming paradigm. For a long time Simonyi was a lead applications developer for Microsoft. According to MIT Technology Review, Simonyi can be considered the world's most successful coder, since everybody else who made more than a billion dollars off software was mostly involved in managing companies, not coding."

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