blusquid - Slashdot User

Submission + - Are Trade Secrets and Trademarks the Future? (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by Glyn Moody on Friday May 21, 2010 @10:10AM

Glyn Moody writes: The Internet's perfect copying machine makes the ideas behind copyright — now in its 301st year — largely irrelevant today: once a copy is online somewhere, it's impossible to take it down everywhere. Could the arrival of low-cost, high-quality desktop 3D printers do the same for patents, by enabling anyone to download and print off analogue objects? With copyright and patents nullified, what might manufacturing companies turn to in order to fight back against these perfect counterfeit versions? How about trade secrets and trademarks?

Submission + - Digital Economy Act: Some unfinished business (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by ChiefMonkeyGrinder on Friday May 14, 2010 @10:03AM

ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes: Remember the Digital Economy Act? Yes, I thought you might. It's still there, hanging like a proverbial sword of Damocles over our digital heads. But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum, er, Houses of Parliament: that nice Mr Clegg found himself catapulted to a position of some power. Now, what was it he said a month ago?

Submission + - Scientists: Size of Oil Spill Underestimated (nytimes.com)

Submitted by cyclocommuter on Thursday May 13, 2010 @11:44PM

cyclocommuter writes: From the NYT article: Ian R. MacDonald, an oceanographer at Florida State University who is an expert in the analysis of oil slicks, said he had made his own rough calculations using satellite imagery. They suggested that the leak could “easily be four or five times” the government estimate, he said.

Submission + - SAP Buying Sybase (forbes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 13, 2010 @08:02PM

An anonymous reader writes: SAP is buying Sybase as a response to Oracle's encroachment into the ERP market. While Sybase probably only holds 3-4 percent of the enterprise data base market, SAP integration may make it the preferred solution for many SAP customers, who will only have to hear music on hold from one vendor.

Apple Loses Another 4th-Gen iPhone 466

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday May 12, 2010 @08:52AM from the ok-now-its-funny dept.

An anonymous reader noted that Apple appears to have lost another of its 4th generation iPhones. This doesn't seem like the most efficient distribution mechanism, Steve. Wonder if the SWAT team will get called in.

Submission + - Is Microsoft About to Declare Patent War on Linux? (computerworlduk.com) 1

Submitted by Glyn Moody on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @08:26AM

Glyn Moody writes: Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, has just published a piece called "Apple v. HTC: A Step Along the Path of Addressing IP Rights in Smartphones." In it, he notes that today's smartphones are all about the "software stack", not the "radio stack", and that "as the IP situation settles in this space and licensing takes off, we will see the patent royalties applicable to the smartphone software stack settle at a level that reflects the increasing importance software has as a portion of the overall value of the device. In the interim, though, we should expect continued activity." That "activity" obviously means lawsuits against those producing those software stacks, and Gutierrez seems to be hinting strongly that Microsoft intends to join in. So where does that leave all the Linux-based stacks such as the increasingly-popular Android? Is this just a clever way for Microsoft to start a patent war on Linux without appearing to do so?

Submission + - Facebook attracting more visitors than Google (hitwise.com)

Submitted by

vikingpower

on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @05:04AM

vikingpower writes: "Internet research firm Hitwise just broke the news: last week, Facebook attracted 7,07 percent of the internet traffic in the USA, against 7,03 percent for Google. This is an historical first, and reflects a change in the way people use internet. They tend to privilege social interaction sites above "passive" search engines."

Submission + - 11th Circuit Eliminates 4th Amend. in E-mail (volokh.com)

Submitted by Artefacto on Monday March 15, 2010 @11:18PM

Artefacto writes: Orin Kerr writes in the Volokh Conspiracy:
Last Thursday, the Eleventh Circuit handed down a Fourth Amendment case, Rehberg v. Paulk, that takes a very narrow view of how the Fourth Amendment applies to e-mail. The Eleventh Circuit held that constitutional protection in stored copies of e-mail held by third parties disappears as soon as any copy of the communication is delivered. Under this new decision, if the government wants get your e-mails, the Fourth Amendment lets the government go to your ISP, wait the seconds it normally takes for the e-mail to be delivered, and then run off copies of your messages.

Humans Continue To Be "Weak Link" In Data Security 117

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday March 15, 2010 @08:46AM from the handcuffs-please dept.

ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes "Nearly 90 percent of IT workers in the UK have said a laptop in their organization has been reported lost or stolen, new research has found. Sixty-one percent said that this then resulted in a data breach, according to the '2010 Human Factor in Laptop Encryption Study: United Kingdom,' a report produced by the Ponemon Institute for Absolute Software."

Submission + - Is Microsoft Afraid to Say the L-word? (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by ChiefMonkeyGrinder on Thursday March 11, 2010 @08:23AM

ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes: It seems that, having lost its position as monarch of the world of computing, Microsoft has decided to become the industry jester. Last week I wrote about its amusing suggestion that we should all be taxed to clean up the mess its software has caused. Now we have this witty post on Microsoft's Port 25 site, which involves writing about open source software applications and the platforms they run on without mentioning 'Linux' once... Of course, there's an inconvenient truth that needs to be negotiated here: the fact that the vast majority of free software runs on GNU/Linux. But fear not, those jolly jesters have come up with a way of representing this fact *without mentioning the “L”-word at all*. They accomplish this amazing feat by talking about – wait for it — “POSIX-compatible” software because, you know, that's just how *everyone* refers to GNU/Linux these days....

Submission + - Saatchi, BBDO go on virtual strike (computerworlduk.com) 1

Submitted by superapecommando on Wednesday February 10, 2010 @10:58AM

superapecommando writes: Belgian ad agencies have launched a week long campaign to change the rules governing the process of bidding for new business.
The agencies, including global names like BBDO, McCann Lowe, Saatchi and Ogilvy, have closed their websites to normal traffic, and instead point visitors to an open letter criticising the current practice in bidding for advertising contracts.

Submission + - Firefox at 5: The Fall and Rise of Mozilla (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by blusquid on Monday November 09, 2009 @01:36PM

blusquid writes: Today is the fifth anniversary of the first official release of Firefox. First, it was free – not just as in beer, which might have been expected for a research project, but also as in freedom. Actually, this wasn't full free software, since the source code was only available for "research and education purposes on a request basis", but it was a start.

Submission + - SPAM: Windows 7 whooper and other bizarre Microsoft mark

Submitted by ChiefMonkeyGrinder on Thursday October 22, 2009 @12:34PM

ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes: Repainting a Spanish town, launching a seven-patty tall Windows 7 Whopper burger in Japan, and giving away software to a sleepy Dutch village. Love or hate Microsoft, you have to admit that it has excelled itself in marketing campaigns around the world to mark the launch of Windows 7.
Link to Original Source

Some Users Say Win7 Wants To Remove iTunes, Google Toolbar 570

Posted by timothy on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @05:23PM from the you-choose-the-teapot-you-choose-the-tempest dept.

Foofoobar writes "Due to a strike with the UK's postal system, people in Great Britain are getting copies of Windows 7 early and have already posted their experiences about the install process. Some have an easy time but others post installs taking 3 hours including Windows asking them to remove iTunes and Google toolbar prior to installation." The article indicates that many of these early users, though, are having better luck.

Firefox Disables Microsoft .NET Addon 448

Posted by kdawson on Sunday October 18, 2009 @08:06AM from the with-their-consent-of-course dept.

ZosX writes "Around 11:45 PM Friday night, I was prompted by Firefox that it had disabled the addons that Microsoft has been including with .NET — specifically, the .NET Framework Assistant and the Windows Presentation Foundation. The popup announcing this said that the 'following addons have been known to cause stability or security issues with Firefox.' Thanks, Mozilla team, for hitting the kill switch and hopefully this will get Microsoft to release a patch sooner." Here's the Mozilla security blog entry announcing the block, which Mozilla implemented via its blocklisting mechanism.

Slashdot Top Deals