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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 49 declined, 23 accepted (72 total, 31.94% accepted)

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Robotics

Submission + - First all-drone USAF air wing (brucefwebster.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "Strategy Page reports that the United States Air Force has announced its first air wing that will consist entirely of unmanned craft. The 174th Fighter Wing has flown its last manned combat sorties; its F-16s will be entirely replaced by MQ-9 Reapers. Reasons cited include costs (maintenance and fuel) and the drone's ability to stay in the air up to 14 hours, waiting for a target to show itself."
The Courts

Submission + - Oracle may seek $1 billion in damages from SAP (bfwa.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "Oracle is in the process of suing SAP for theft of confidential information. Specifically, Oracle alleges that a US-based subsidiary of SAP, TomorrowNow, registered itself as an Oracle customer to license and download Oracle documentation, patches, and even source code. The judge in the case ordered mediation back in February, but that appears to have gone nowhere. It doesn't help that SAP has admitted that TomorrowNow conducted "inappropriate downloads" of Oracle software. Now the lawsuit appears to be going forward, and Oracle is now making noises that it may seek as much as $1 billion in damages from SAP. Yep, that's "billion" with a "b".

Intellectual property cases like this are more common than you think, particularly when a given firm — for competitive and trade secret reasons — strictly limits software, patches, and documentation to formally licensed and registered customers. In such cases, a competitor may retain a third-party firm to become a licensed customer, then use that relationship to gain proprietary information. What's curious here is that this was done by an SAP subsidiary. Oracle states that none of the files downloaded by TomorrowNow made their way back to SAP itself, but that's a hard negative to prove. Between this and the lawsuit from Waste Management, times are tough at SAP."
The Courts

Submission + - Patent suit claims "millions of devices" i (bfwa.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "According to this story over at PocketLink, Typhoon Touch Technologies has "'significantly expanded' its patent infringement suit begun in December 2007 against Dell by adding Apple, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Lenovo, Panasonic, HTC, Palm, Samsung, Nokia and LG" — in other words, just about every firm that manufactures a "portable computer with touch screen and computer system employing the same." The patents in question are US Patents 5,379,057 (filed in 1993, issued in 1995) and 5,675,362 (filed in 1994 and issued in 1997). Typhoon's own press release on the expansion can be found on their home page. (Curiously missing from the lawsuit: Motorola.)

Since PDA-like devices date back to the 1980s, and John Sculley announced the Apple Newton — complete with a touch screen — in early 1992, a year before the earlier patent was filed, one wonders whether these patents can hold up under prior art, and it's unclear why the patents were granted in the first place.

On the other hand, there are some curious information gaps on the web. Just last week (see entry for 05:29, 18 June 2008), someone stripped out the "History" section of the Wikipedia article on PDAs, which — before being deleted — documented PDAs going back to 1983. Likewise, a commonly-linked article — "The Evolution of the PDA: 1975-1995" by Evan Koblanz — appears to have been pulled off the web. (Google doesn't have a cached version, nor does the Internet Wayback Machine.) Sounds as though someone may be trying to do historical revision in advance of trial. ..bruce.."
Programming

Submission + - Anatomy of a runaway IT project (brucefwebster.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "While searching through some archived files on CDs, I ran across a memo that I wrote some years back to a senior executive at a large corporation after I conducted (upon request) a quiet review of a major troubled IT project at that corporation. The memo, just a few dozen paragraphs long, summarizes the widespread and pervasive problems with the project, which had been going on for a few years and eventually would fail entirely. I've publicly posted a carefully redacted version of the memo as a reminder of just how and wny a major corporate IT project can get so off-track."
Censorship

Submission + - TSA investigages former air marshal for e-mail (brucefwebster.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "Jeffrey Denning used to work as a Federal Air Marshal (FAM) for the US Transportation Security Agency (TSA). He quit the TSA last year, then was called up in the US Army Reserve and went over to serve in Iraq. This past March, while still in Iraq, he received (on his private e-mail account) an e-mail addressed to current and former FAMs which suggested they contact CNN, which was preparing a report on problems with the TSA; Denning thinks he may have forwarded that e-mail on to a few more FAMs. When he got home from Iraq earlier this month, he discovered that the TSA had launched an investigation to find out who sent that original e-mail to him. Needless to say, he is not amused."
Space

Submission + - Man to attempt 25-mile skydive [UPDATED] (brucefwebster.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "According to a story in Saturday's New York Times, Michael Fournier will attempt a 130,000-foot parachute jump on Sunday (5/25), after rising to that altitude in a pressurized gondola lifted by a helium balloon. If he succeeds, he will break the old skydiving record of 102,800 feet. He is also expected to break the speed of sound during his descent.

N.B.: The original story posted this morning had a major scientific error in it, stating that Fournier would experience weightlessness before jumping out of the capsule. Sometime on Saturday, the New York Times corrected that error without any acknowledgment. The original text and screenshots can be viewed here."
Space

Submission + - Man to attempt 25-mile skydive (brucefwebster.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "Today's New York Times reports on the plans of Michel Fournier to skydive out of a helium baloon at 130,000 feet tomorrow (Sunday, 5/25), breaking the previous record of 102,800 feet. According to the article, Fornier hopes to go supersonic during his descent, getting to 1000 MPH before the atmosphere thickens up enough to slow him down.

The article, however, has at least one major scientific gaffe: it claims that when Fournier reaches his maximum altitude, but before he exits the baloon, "[h]e will experience weightlessness." Uh, no he won't. He will experience free fall — by definition — when he jumps out of the balloon, but he'll still feel pretty much his full weight (~99% of sea level gravity) in the gondola before he jumps."
Education

Submission + - Japan "running out of engineers" (brucefwebster.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "A story in the New York Times reports that Japan, a country that rebuilt itself as a technological power after World War II, now faces an increasing shortage of college graduates with degrees in science and engineering. Says the article: "By one ministry of internal affairs estimate, the digital technology industry here is already short almost half a million engineers." The article goes on to point out that the overall trend of waning interest in science and technology has been going on for "almost two decades" and that the shortage is made worse by the traditional reluctance of Japanese companies to hire and use foreign workers. The US has had a similar trend for quite some time: "Undergraduate engineering enrollment declined through most of the 1980s and 1990s, rose from 2000 through 2003, and declined slightly in recent years.""
Google

Submission + - Google 'Stop Badware' initiative causing turmoil (brucefwebster.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "Slashdot ran a brief story three months ago about a joint initiative between Google and Sun to stop 'badware'. Sounds nice, right? In reality, the implementation leaves much to be desired. Simply put, if the StopBadware group detects 'badware' on your website or blog, it passes that information on to Google — and Google then labels all search results for that website with the warning "This site may harm your computer." In theory, Google notifies the website ahead of time; in practice, that doesn't seem to be happening, at least not consistently. In any case, Google does not provide any information about what the alleged 'badware' is or how to remediate it, and only vague information on where the badware might be. (I know because I've spent the past week dealing with this myself.) Needless to say, a lot of blogs (particularly those running WordPress 2.3.x or earlier) and websites are struggling with this — and a lot more are probably frankly unaware that they've been blacklisted by Google."
The Courts

Submission + - News Corp behind pirate satellite TV cards? (brucefwebster.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "There's a civil lawsuit trial going on right now in Santa Ana (CA), in which Echostar Communications (DISH Network) is suing NDS Group, a satellite security contractor for News Corp, which in turn owns 34% of DirecTV (DISH Network's main competitor), as well as part or all of several other satellite TV networks around the world. Echostar alleges that NDS paid Christopher Tarnovsky to reverse engineer the DISH satellite box 'smart cards', then distributed that information to Canada-based groups that manufacture and sell into the US illegal 'pirate' smart cards that allow people to tap into the DISH Network satellite signals without payment. NDS and Tarnovsky deny any wrong-doing, but it has come out in the trial that Tarnovsky was initially paid for this work with large sums of cash stuffed inside CD and DVD players. I'm not sure exactly how that shows up on a Form 1099-A."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft loses appeal on class-action suit (brucefwebster.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "Microsoft lost its appeal to remove class-action status for the 'Vista Capable' lawsuit that has already resulted in some embarrassing internal e-mails being released publicly. As Computerworld reports, in its appeal to the US Ninth Circuit Court, Microsoft argued (among other things) that "continuing the lawsuit might mean new disclosures of insider e-mails, which could 'jeopardize Microsoft's goodwill' and 'disrupt Microsoft's relationships with its business partners.'" Given what's been released so far [PDF, 158 pages], not to mention Microsoft's history of rather frank internal e-mails, that's probably putting it mildly. There could be some interesting reading ahead."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Jerry Pournelle undergoing radiation therapy (brucefwebster.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "I just found out that Jerry Pournelle — science fiction author and BYTE columnist for decades — is undergoing radiation therapy for a brain tumor or growth of some kind. I've known Jerry and his lovely wife Roberta since the mid-80s, when I wrote for BYTE myself, and I've had the privilege of visiting them at home and having them in ours. While some disagree with Jerry's political and/or technological views — and while he certainly doesn't suffer fools gladly — Jerry is one of the brightest and most broadly- and deeply-read people I have ever met in my life. Stop by his blog to track his progress and wish him the best."
Government

Submission + - State lawmaker want to ban anonymous posting (bfwa.com) 1

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "According to a news article, Kentucky state lawmaker, Tim Couch, wants to ban anonymous posting on the internet in order to "cut down on online bullying", which he says has been "a particular problem in eastern Kentucky." Wha...? Pardon my cynicism, but I think it's far more likely to have something to do with corporate and/or organizational criticism than online bullying. His bill would require posters to register with their real names and e-mail addresses under threat of fines. Let's see how many problems with this we can come up with off the tops of our collective heads. For starters: how is Kentucky's legal jurisdiction over a given website established? By who reads it? By who writes it? By who posts to it? By where the website is hosted? Looks like another battle in the right for anonymous free speech."
The Courts

Submission + - Breath-test mfgr sued to release source code (brucefwebster.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "While we're all familiar with the ongoing disputes over the release and review of source code for electronic voting machines, a different issue has surfaced in Minnesota. There, some judges have ruled in driving-while-under-the-influence (DWI) cases that the defendant has a right to examine the source code of the breath-test machine used — and their rulings were upheld last July by the Minnesota Supreme Court. Judges in Minnesota have now started to dismiss DWI cases when the source code is not produced. This has forced the Minnesota Department of Public Safety (reluctantly) to sue CMI, Inc., the manufacturer, to release the source code; CMI has refused to date, citing trade secret considerations. I've written up a summary of the expert analysis issues likely to arise going forward in the case, including architectural and algorithmic analysis, source code quality, defect logs, and source code control. Since a similar case (involving a different manufacturer) in New Jersey revealed what the DWI defendant's experts claimed to be a massive number of errors and some significant design flaws, this could be quite interesting. But still: don't drink and drive."
Space

Submission + - Building an IT infrastructure around Mars (brucefwebster.com)

Submitted by
bfwebster
bfwebster writes: "Space.com has an article talking about the efforts to observe the arrival of the Phoenix lander on Mars this coming May using current Mars orbiters. Slashdotters will likely be as intrigued to see the ways in which NASA is using existing landers and orbiters to prepare for and then monitor that landing. This includes using the existing landers (Spirit and Opportunity) to simulate transmissions from Phoenix as a testing procedure in advance of the actual landing, using the Odyssey orbiter as a high-speed data transmission link from Phoenix to Earth during the landing, and using the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Mars Express orbiter as backup data stores for Phoenix data transmissions during the descent. So, how long until we get a terabyte solid-state dataserver (running IPv6, 'natch) in orbit around Mars?"

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